Act communicable Notifiable Diseases Management System (ndms)

ACT Communicable Notifiable Diseases Management System (NDMS)

ACT Health

Background

Under the Public Health Act 1997, laboratories, hospitals, medical practitioners in the ACT must notify ACT Health of diagnoses of certain infectious diseases and conditions. These notifications are compiled into the Notifiable Diseases Management System which is held by the Communicable Disease Control Section at the Health Protection Service.
For a condition to be notified, a patient must seek medical help, be diagnosed with the condition, have the appropriate laboratory tests, and then the diagnosis must be reported to ACT Health.

Data Requests

Any requests for notifiable diseases data in the ACT must comply with the requirements of the data ACT Health Data Release Policy 2007. Please note that the release of notifiable diseases data is subject to data custodian approval, ethics approval (where required) and possibly other data caveats (eg. limitations on the publication of small data sets).

Tips for using NDMS data in linkage studies

• 
  Data from 1/1/2000 has been incorporated into the Master Linkage Key, therefore studies wishing to use NDMS data may request data from then onwards.
  
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  Notifiable diseases are generally under-reported in the NDMS – this should be taken into consideration when reporting results of studies using these data.
  

Data Custodian

Chief Health Officer

Dr Paul Kelly

Population Health Division

ACT Health

Data contact person

Rebecca Hundy

Manager, Disease Surveillance

Communicable Disease Control Section

Health Protection Service

ACT Health

Ph. [phone]

Fax [phone]

Em [e-mail]

ACT Communicable NDMS Variable information

Variable	Description/Notes	Data quality and completeness
Disease Name	Conditions that are notifiable in the ACT are listed here http://www.health.act.gov.au/sites/default/files/Reporting_of_notifiable_conditions_code_of_practice_and_form_0.pdf	Required field - High accuracy and reliability, 100% complete
Type name	Linked to disease name, relevant for some diseases and not others for example, Salmonella subtypes such as typhimurium, virchow, enteritidis ; Legionella subtypes such as pneumophila, longbeachae.	Where information is known, data highly accurate and reliable.
Age	Age at onset, in years	Required field, database generated from recorded date and date of birth, 100% complete
DOB	dd-mm-yyyy	Required field - High accuracy and reliability, 100% complete.
Sex	1 = Male 2 = Female 3 = Indeterminate 9 = Unknown	Required field – High accuracy and reliability, 100% complete.
Indigenous Status	1 = Indigenous – Aboriginal but not Torres Strait Islander 2 =Indigenous – Torres Strait Islander but not aboriginal 3 = Indigenous – Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander 4 = Not Aboriginal 9 = Not Stated	Data are only known for diseases where follow-up occurs*.
Diagnosis method	Unknown Other Histopathology Antigen Detection Epi-linked Microscopy Nucleic acid testing Culture Clinical Serology	High accuracy and reliability,100% complete.
Recorded date	Date notification recorded on NDMS (auto-completed)	Required field - Database generated as day of entry, high accuracy and reliability.
Specimen date	Date of specimen collection	Required field – high accuracy and reliability.
Hospitalised	Yes/No Defaults to no	Data are only accurately known for diseases where follow-up occurs*.

* There are different follow-up and investigation practices for each of the notifiable conditions, and these practices have varied over past years. This subsequently has an effect on data quality and completeness. Similarly, the formatting of selected field variables has also changed over time. Applicants should request further information regarding specific disease follow-up practices and data quality prior to submitting a data release request. The information provided above should only be taken as a very rough indication of data completeness and quality.

Notifiable Diseases Management System - ACT