Scottish Health Information Service (SHIS)

In this issue

• About Scottish Health Information Service (SHIS)
• ACaDMe Online
• Approaches to Data Sharing: National Comparative
• Outpatient data
• Data Completeness
• Data from General Register Office for Scotland (GROS)
• Troubleshooting tips
• Helpline

About Scottish Health Information Service (SHIS)

The Scottish Health Information Service (SHIS) has a central role in the modernising of information delivery for ISD Scotland. This SHIS newsletter brings you the latest from the SHIS programme.

There are four interrelated areas of work contained within SHIS. The first focuses on the provision of data marts and supporting NHS Boards in the online analyses of those data marts. Second is Navigator, a system that provides key healthcare staff with access to a broad range of comparative information to help review, monitor and plan healthcare services and support quality improvement. Third is the development of approaches to data sharing across NHS Boards. Finally, the Scottish Health Information Service for Research (SHIS-R) and Medical Records linkage team which together will enable the provision of datasets for research.

ACaDMe Online

The ACaDMe data mart which contains linked SRM01 (inpatient and daycase), SMR04 (mental health), SMR06 (cancer) and deaths data from General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) now has its own dedicated web pages on the ISD website. Here you will find the latest information on updates to the data mart, contacts, training and support material. In addition to this, the team are currently developing an ACaDMe user community through the NHS Education for Scotland Knowledge Network and we look forward to bringing you more news on that soon.

Approaches to Data Sharing: National Comparative

‘National Comparative’ is a project to develop a new ‘view’ of the ACaDMe data mart which will enable authorised NHS Board users to compare their data against other NHS Boards. It is hoped that National Comparative will be used in service planning and to support performance management at NHS Board, hospital and specialty levels. Information governance and training materials are being developed to support this data sharing initiative. The NHSScotland Caldicott Guardians will be asked to review and approve the governance arrangements prior to this new initiative going live.

If you would like to know more about this development, please contact Doug Kidd, SHIS Project Manager at e-mail: d.kidd@nhs.net for more information.

Outpatient Data

One of the main messages from the rollout of ACaDMe to NHS Boards was that users would like to have online access to outpatient (SMR00) data. We would therefore like to announce that the Outpatients (SMR00) data mart is now available. The SHIS Training and Support team are in discussion with NHS Board lead contacts to find out who will require access and training to this new data mart.

You can call our helpline on 0131 275 7050 or e-mail nss.isdoutpatients@nhs.net for more information.

Data Completeness

Each month when we mail our users we include information on data completeness. Our latest plan is to provide that same information in a data mart which will sit alongside the ACaDMe and Outpatients (SMR00) data marts. Development is still underway so we will keep you posted through this newsletter and the SHIS web pages. The new data mart will contain information about ACaDMe and Outpatients (SMR00) but will expand to contain other data completeness information as other data marts are developed.

Data from General Register Office for Scotland (GROS)

Although ACaDMe is updated monthly, the deaths data from General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) is currently updated quarterly. Your feedback is that you would like this data more frequently and we can now confirm that a monthly update is planned. We hope that this will be in place shortly and will e-mail ACaDMe and Outpatient data mart users as soon as this has been implemented.

Data Mart Troubleshooting Tips

The ACaDMe team have received a number of calls from you as a result of this error message.

This appears when you try to select a list of values, run, refresh or create a report. The error message is actually as a result of mis- keying the ‘case’ of your password when you log-in. Fortunately this is very easily fixed, all you have do is log off and log on again…making sure that you get the ‘case’ of your pAssWoRd correct.

Helpline

All enquiries regarding using the data marts are managed by our helpline so whether your query is about accessing the Outpatients (SMR00) data mart or building a query in ACaDMe you can call the team on 0131 275 7050.