NEW ZEALAND HEALTH INFORMATION SERVICE

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Scope

Purpose
The Mental Health Information Collection (MHDW) was established to enable NZHIS information analysts to carry out reporting and ad hoc queries independently of the monthly validation and updating processes taking place in the Mental Health Information National Collection (MHINC) transactional database. It is a high-level national data collection that:

• allows the Ministry of Health to manipulate and report data to monitor the implementation of the national mental health strategy
• provides data extracts for research into the provision of mental health services.

• the Shared Objects repository (Census, Global Time and Geography tables)
• the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS) (Clinical Code table)
• the National Health Index (date of death and master encrypted NHI numbers).

Start date

The MHDW was started in July 2000.

Guide for use

The MHDW contains information about a healthcare user’s demographics, their use of mental health services, and their diagnosis and legal status. During the load process, the records are linked by unique identifier, agency and dates but, because of the nature of the data, these links require interpretation. For example, legal statuses and diagnoses do not have expiry dates and are assumed to be current until they are superseded by new data. Refer to the MHDW Data Dictionary for detailed information.
The MHDW is dependent on the quality of information in the MHINC.

Contact information

For further information about this collection or to request specific datasets or reports, contact the NZHIS Analytical Services team, on ph 04 816 2882, fax 04 816 2898, or e-mail inquiries@nzhis.govt.nz.

Collection methods – guide for providers

Every month, the MHDW is reconstructed from the contents of the MHINC.

Frequency of updates

Data is extracted from the MHINC on the 10th and the 25th of each month.

Security of data

The MHDW is only accessed by authorised NZHIS staff for maintenance, data quality, analytical and audit purposes.
Authorised members of the Ministry of Health’s Mental Health Directorate have access to the data for analytical purposes via the Business Objects reporting tool and the secure Health Information Network. Business Objects contains a subset of the data described in the Data Dictionary.

Privacy issues

The Ministry of Health is required to ensure that the release of information recognises any legislation related to the privacy of health information, in particular the Official Information Act 1982, the Privacy Act 1993, and the Health Information Privacy Code 1994.
Information available to the general public is of a statistical and non-identifiable nature. Researchers requiring identifiable data will usually need approval from an Ethics Committee.

National reports and publications

NZHIS sends regular standard reports via the secure Health Information Network (HIN) to providers and funders about their service to give feedback on the information they send to the MHINC.
In the future, publications will be produced annually by NZHIS.

Data provision

Customised datasets or summary reports are available on request, either electronically or on paper. Staff from the NZHIS Analytical Services team can help to define the specifications for a request and are familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the data.
The NZHIS Analytical Services team also offers a peer review service to ensure that NZHIS data is reported appropriately when published by other organisations.
There may be charges associated with data extracts.



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