National Radiotherapy Waiting Times Database, 2014–15; Quality Statement
Data Quality Statement Attributes
Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
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Synonymous names: | National Radiotherapy Waiting Times Database (NRWTD), 2014–15 (pilot collection) |
METEOR identifier: | 648146 |
Registration status: | AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 02/08/2017 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: | The National Radiotherapy Waiting Times Database (NRWTD) is a compilation of data supplied to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) based on the Radiotherapy waiting times DSS 2013-15 which was collected from participating radiotherapy providers for the period 2014–15 as the second year of a pilot collection. Each record provides information relating to a course of radiotherapy that began in the reference period (that is, where the waiting period associated with the course of radiotherapy ended in the reference period). Other data collected includes administrative details, patient demographic characteristics and some clinical information, as follows:
Summary of key issues: Reporting by radiotherapy providers for this second pilot year of collection was not mandatory, however full coverage of public providers was achieved, and a high proportion of private providers chose to provide data. The retrospective and pilot nature of this collection increases the likelihood that definitions such as the Ready-for-care date and Radiotherapy start date, that clinicians and providers use, may vary from the agreed DSS definition. These differences cannot be resolved or compensated for in this retrospective collection. This may particularly affect comparisons of data across states/territories and across sectors. |
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Institutional environment: | The Australian Government set up the AIHW as a major national agency under the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987 to provide reliable, regular and relevant information and statistics on Australia’s health and welfare. It is an independent corporate Commonwealth entity that a management board governs, and it is accountable to the Australian Parliament through the Health portfolio. The AIHW aims to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians through better health and welfare information and statistics. It collects and reports information on a wide range of topics and issues, ranging from health and welfare expenditure, hospitals, disease and injury, and mental health, to ageing, homelessness, disability and child protection. The Institute also plays a role in developing and maintaining national metadata standards. This work contributes to improving the quality and consistency of national health and welfare statistics. The Institute works closely with governments and non-government organisations to achieve greater adherence to these standards in administrative data collections to promote national consistency and comparability of data and reporting. One of the main functions of the AIHW is to work with the states and territories to improve the quality of administrative data and, where possible, to compile national data sets based on data from each jurisdiction, to analyse these data sets and disseminate information and statistics. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Act 1987, in conjunction with compliance to the Privacy Act 1988 (Commonwealth), ensures that the data collections that the AIHW manages are kept securely and under the strictest conditions with respect to privacy and confidentiality. For further information, see the AIHW website www.aihw.gov.au. The state and territory health authorities received the data used in this report from public radiotherapy providers. States and territories use these data for service planning, monitoring and internal and public reporting. These public radiotherapy providers may be required to provide data to states and territories through a variety of administrative arrangements, contractual requirements or legislation. Some private providers that have a contract or partnership arrangement to provide services to public patients were required to participate, while other private providers (that were not obliged by a contract or a partnership agreement to participate) did so voluntarily. Some private providers submitted data directly to the AIHW while others submitted through their state or territory health authority. |
Timeliness: | The reference period for this data set is 2014–15. This includes records for all patients who started a course of radiotherapy between 1 July 2014 and 30 June 2015. These data were first published in October 2016. |
Accessibility: | The AIHW publish data from this collection on the AIHW website at: http://www.aihw.gov.au. |
Interpretability: | Metadata information for the RWT DSS is published in the AIHW’s Metadata Online Registry (METeOR). METeOR can be accessed at the following AIHW web address: |
Relevance: | The purpose of the radiotherapy waiting times DSS is to collect information about the times that patients wait for radiotherapy in Australia, and the factors that affect waiting times. Information is also collected on the number of courses of radiotherapy provided and key demographic and clinical information about the patients who received this treatment. The scope of the DSS is patients who began a course of radiotherapy in the reporting period in Australia. |
Accuracy: | A number of quality issues were identified, but it is not possible to quantify impact.
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Coherence: | 2014–15 is the second pilot year of collection of radiotherapy waiting times data. There were no changes to the metadata upon which the data collections are based and the 2013–14 and 2014–15 data collections are broadly comparable. However, the following differences should be noted:
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Data products | |
Implementation start date: | 01/07/2014 |
Source and reference attributes | |
Submitting organisation: | AIHW |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes National Radiotherapy Waiting Times Database, 2013‒14; Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 02/11/2016 Has been superseded by National Radiotherapy Waiting Times Database, 2015–16; Quality Statement AIHW Data Quality Statements, Superseded 16/07/2018 See also Radiotherapy waiting times DSS 2013-15 Health, Superseded 13/11/2013 |