Division Network Reporting – What we learnt

In early 2009, Divisions reported against the revised National Quality and Performance System performance indicators (for their 2008-09 Six Month Reports) through an ‘enhanced’ on-line system administered by PHC RIS. The enhanced system used existing infrastructure and delivered additional functionality. Divisions reported that they found the new performance indicators simpler and that they were happy to have returned to an easy to use on-line system (after reverting to a Word based system for their 2008-09 Planning).

National performance indicators are used for both accountability and learning. In order to be of optimum value they need to be unambiguously designed and defined, diligently reported and appropriately analysed and aggregated.

In their Six Month Reports, Divisions were asked to report on the number of women who had a pap smear in the previous two years with the option of using two different methods of data collection. They could either report data collected as part of a state-wide cervical screening program, or on data collected by the Division direct from practices. The top 20 NSW Divisions (which reported between 57% to 74% of women) had presented data from the state-wide program, the rest reported on data collected by Divisions direct from practices (see Fig 1). This example demonstrates that the data drawn from the different sources is not readily comparable, nor should it be aggregated without due consideration to the context and range of responses.