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About DHCNI Data

The data teams within DHCNI (Digital Health and Care NI) are responsible for regional clinical coding, information standards and analytics.  This includes the development of new definitions, system technical guidance, coding standards, development of dashboards to help deliver more regionally standardised information to support more streamlined, efficient and less labour-intensive flows of information for the HSC.

Working closely with stakeholders both internal and external to HSC to understand the data, support improvements to the data and ultimately to make HSC a data and insight driven organisation that improves people’s lives through the use of data.

What's new

Below are some of the most recently published reports and guidance documents managed by the Regional Clinical Coding and Information Standards Teams.

Clinical Coding

  • OPCS 4.10 – implementation for discharges from 1 April 2023
  • Termination of Pregnancy and ACC bulletins – January 2023
  • Clinical coding guidance of the coding of Monkey Pox
  • Monitoring report (April to September 2022)
  • 2022 self-learning standards update course – implementation for discharges from 1 December 2022

Information Standards

  • Regional Day Procedure Centres  Technical Guidance
  • Continuity of Midwifery Carer Technical Guidance
  • Regional Diagnosis Centres System Technical Guidance
  • Recording Admissions and Discharges Technical Guidance
  • Northern Ireland Health Care Professional Codes
About Data Standards

Regional Clinical Coding

The Regional Clinical Coding team help and support the clinical coding profession in Northern Ireland through:

  • Provision of a helpdesk service which deals with all clinical coding queries
  • Developing and publishing NI Coding Standards
  • Delivering training to clinical coders and bespoke training for both coders & non-coders
  • Carrying out clinical coding audits
  • Working closely with the UK in the future development of Clinical Coding
  • Participation in national groups that have clinical coding, the maintenance of classifications and standards, the promotion of the profession and delivery of the UK National Clinical Coding Qualification as their core responsibility

Analytics

The DHCNI analytics team includes data scientists, business intelligence developers and data analysts, providing in-house expertise on healthcare data.  The main focus is GPIP (General Practitioners Intelligence Platform) and supporting the MDT (Multi-disciplinary Teams) Programme.

GPIP will:

  • Provide the ability for GP practices to avail of analytical support to enable data quality in practice, improving the quality of service delivery.
  • Provide a single, integrated view of GP practice data.
  • Allow visualisation for both individual patients and a GP practice as a whole.

The analysts support the Primary Care MDT Programme with analysis, data visualisation, provision of reports, provision of training of users and technical support. The analytics team work directly with staff to help provide both the means to enter their activity through their clinical system and then to better understand it through data visualisation in dashboards.

Information Standards

The aim and responsibilities of the Information Standards Team is to provide a range of services to the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care organisations; including a Helpdesk and Data Dictionary with a view to improve the definition, collection and reporting of timely, accurate and consistent data.

Services include:

  • Helpdesk
  • Develop, Review and Implement Standards & System Technical Guidance
  • Data Reference Queries
  • NI Data Dictionary

The Information Standards team collaborate with stakeholders from the Trusts, Regional Organisations and UK Counterparts to develop Regionally Standardised data definitions, standards and system technical guidance.

Data Team Contacts

Contact the data teams via the email addresses below and a member of the team will be in touch:

Clinical Coding
ClinicalCoding@hscni.net

Information Standards
HSCDataStandards@hscni.net

GPIP
Gpip.support@hscni.net

Page last updated: 22 August 2023