 The Registry validates data collected from individual hospitals by comparing it with data provided by state and territory health departments.
Validation of Registry data against health department unit record data uses a sequential multi-level matching process. An individual level patient/procedure validation has been performed for South Australian, Western Australian, Tasmanian, Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory data (from September 1999 when hospitals began contributing to the AOA NJRR). Queensland supplies summary data only and negotiations are continuing with New South Wales. The initial matching is performed using hospital and patient identity number with subsequent matching undertaken on relevant procedure codes and appropriate admission time period. "Errors" in data can occur within Government and Registry data at any of these levels, that is, errors in patient identification, coding or admission period attribution by either the hospital or state health department.
Currently the Registry receives information from hospitals on more procedures than are provided by the state health departments. For the period of matching for this report the Registry received 11,190 (11.8%) more forms than the number of procedures provided in the health department unit record data. The Registry accepts that these additional notifications are valid.
On the initial pass of this validation process, 90% of records were an exact match and 3% were partial matches. Note that these percentages do not reflect the capture rate of procedures, but rather the provision of data to the Registry and the adequacy of matching data from several sources in the absence of an industry standard. Subsequent errors in "matching" are managed depending on the nature of the error. Errors within the health department files may have been identified on procedure code, for example a procedure within a specific hospital may be identified as ICD-10-AM code 49318-00 (a primary hip code), and the Registry has received a form for a Primary Knee procedure performed in that hospital on a patient with that unit record number within the specified admission time. Other errors may only be resolved by contacting the original treating hospital, for example, clarification of primary or revision codes or admission times. The validation process also identifies procedures that have not been notified to the Registry. Sufficient information is supplied in the state unit record data (patient unit record number and admission period) to enable the Registry to request procedure details from individual hospitals for these unreported records.
Following the validation process and the retrieval of unreported records, the Registry contains the most complete set of data relating to hip and knee replacement in Australia.
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