Laboratory claims collection

Labs was established in 2000 and contains data from July 1997.

Labs contains claim and payment information that has been audited against the Sector Operations payments system and some Health NZ districts.

Until late 2003, Labs is known to incorrectly attribute laboratory test costs to Health NZ districts. This happens when both:

• the district is identified by the domicile codes of the providers who ordered the tests
• some providers order tests from laboratories funded by other districts.

The error range is from 10% to 15%. With the introduction of the Funding DHB field, when populated this data will be accurate.

For further details refer to the National Booking Reporting System data dictionary.

National Booking Reporting System data dictionary — Data dictionaries

Data is sourced from Sector Operations’ GTPS and bulk-funded data from Pegasus and Medlab South IPAs.

Labs receives monthly extracts from Sector Operations and Pegasus.

The GMS data mart is accessed by authorised Health NZ staff for the purposes of:

• maintenance
• data quality
• audit
• analytics.

Authorised members of the Ministry of Health and Health NZ have access to the collection for analytical purposes, using Business Objects and the secure Health Information Network. Business Objects contains a subset of the data described in the data dictionary.

Business Objects is being decommissioned.

We are required to make sure that the release of information meets the conditions of any legislation related to the privacy of health information. In particular the:

• Official Information Act 1982
• Privacy Act 2020
• Health Information Privacy Code 2020.

Information available to the general public is of a statistical and non-identifiable nature. A data release policy covers approval where appropriate from a health ethics committee.

In 2010 claims, the encrypted NHI number is stored for approximately 98% of laboratory test records. In earlier years, it varied, dropping to as low as 13% in 1997 claims. Identifying information is only held for health providers who request the test and not for the pathologist performing the test.

Monthly standard reports for Health NZ districts are available in the Health Information Network (HIN).

Customised datasets or summary reports are available on request. These can be electronic or on paper.

Our team can help to define the specifications for a request and are familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of the data.

We also offer a peer review service to make sure Health NZ data is reported appropriately when published by other organisations.

There may be charges associated with data extracts.