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HealthWIZ

In 1991, HealthWIZ was developed by the Australian Government of Health and Ageing as a means of providing population health and health services data. The data contained in HealthWIZ are collated from a range of sources including the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA), Medicare Australia, State Health Departments and the Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages. In 1999 HealthWIZ was published as a non-commercial product, and was made available to eligible Australian health agencies and organisations at a nominal cost.

HealthWIZ is easy to use, allows aggregate data to be drilled down in a number of ways, and presents results in maps and tables. For example, the General Practice Workforce data set provides information on Full-time Workload Equivalence, proportion of GPs aged over 55 years (see map) and proportion of female GPs. This information can be presented by State, Divisions of General Practice or Urban/Rural Divisions. It is clear from the map shown here, that SA and NSW have the highest proportion of GPs aged over 55 years. This is an area of increasing importance to the health sector as over 30% of the workforce approaches retirement.

The current edition of HealthWIZ 7.3.4 was released in November 2005. This version contains a number of features that make it useful for Divisions and other health services for planning, research and development. Some data sets are available from 1984 through to 2004, making longitudinal and trend analysis possible. Results from the Burden of Disease study and National Health Surveys are also available for analysis.

Web: http://www.healthwiz.com.au