The Child Health Check Initiative (CHCI) was initiated under the Northern Territory (NT) Emergency Response in June 2007. As a component of the CHCI, the Australian Government funded the NT government to provide follow-up audiology and ear, nose and throat (ENT) services, including consultation and surgery, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in prescribed areas of the NT. This continued under the Closing the Gap (CtG) initiative between July 2009 and June 2012, and the National Partnership Agreement on Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory (SFNT) from July 2012.
Indigenous children who were referred to ENT services as part of their Child Health Check or CtG audiology services were the main target group for the ENT services. However, other Indigenous children aged 15 or less covered by the CHCI who required ENT services may have also received these services. Under the SFNT, the eligibility for audiology services was broadened to all Indigenous children aged under 16 in the NT.
The clinical diagnoses are based on case history, audiology and ostoscopy information collected through teleotology protocol with no direct examination by the ENT specialist.
Collection and usage attributes
Guide for use:
The follow-up services were delivered by the NT Department of Health (NT DoH) and Aboriginal medical services.
Children aged 5 or over with otitis media with effusion (OME) that has persisted for more than 3 months and had associated bilateral hearing loss are considered for ENT surgical intervention. Children with inactive chronic suppurative otitis media (CSOM) dry perforation, who are older than 8 years, are also considered for ENT intervention.
Acute otitis media conditions and active CSOM will generally not be considered suitable for surgical intervention until the underlying active infection is treated and maintained through primary health intervention.
Surgeries are discussed with children’s families before operation, including pre and post-surgical care which may be ongoing for up to 3 years. Families are also provided with resources to support discussion of the types of surgeries being performed.
Collection methods:
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) only receives confidentialised unit record level information on those children for which consent for data provision to the AIHW has been obtained.
Comments:
Glossary terms that are relevant to this DSS include:
The term ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’ is preferred when referring to the separate Indigenous peoples of Australia. However, the term ‘Indigenous’ is used interchangeably with ‘Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander’ in this data set specification to assist readability.
Two versions of the CtG ENT operation summary form were used by the NT Department of Health and Families to collect ENT surgery information—version 1 was used between October and November 2009 and version 2 used between December 2009 and October 2010.
The key differences between the forms are:
version 2 includes an additional data field: 'community' which includes the community name where the surgery recipient resides
surgery types in the 'Surgery description' field are different between versions 1 and 2.
The Closing the Gap/Child Health Check Initiative: Ear, nose and throat operation summary form DSS is based on version 2 of the CtG ENT operation summary form.
As this DSS was created for the purposes of the CHCI project the metadata would be most suitable for service monitoring.
AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) 2012. Northern Territory Emergency Response Child Health Check Initiative: follow-up services for oral and ear health: final report, 2007-2012. Cat. no. DEN 223. Canberra: AIHW
Harris P, Nagy S, Vardaxis N (eds) 2010. Mosby’s Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Profession, 2nd Australian and New Zealand edn. NSW: Mosby Elsevier