Stage 2: Data search

Find patients in your system

In the data search stage, you will query your clinical software to identify coded diagnoses or other indicators that can tell whether a person has a diagnoses or risk of hepatitis C.

Coded data refers to selecting from pre-set lists from within the clinical software. RACGP standards specify minimum ‘coded’ data collection for general practice.

This includes:

Gender
Age
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status
Ethnicity (to help identify culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) status)
Coded diagnoses where applicable.

These data points can all help you identify patients at risk of hepatitis C as well as ongoing care and management.

Timing: It’s expected that it will take most practices around 1-2 months to complete this step.

Stigma and discrimination

Stigma and discrimination can have an impact on whether people seek treatment for hepatitis C, and the way it’s handled by medical staff. There may also have been a historical reluctance to code a diagnosis of hepatitis C.

In this project, you have an opportunity to identify patients who may not have coded data. To do this, you may need to look for other data points that indicate that the person may be at risk of hepatitis C.

Learn more about stigma and discrimination in the FAQs.

Searching clinical data

As you begin your data search, start with the simple and progress at a pace that is right for you. The following clinical data searches can be conducted using existing clinical software and data extraction tools: 

Patients with hepatitis C diagnosis who have not been seen for a specified period of time.  
Patients on hepatitis C medications with no coded diagnosis of hepatitis C.

For advanced practices, additional clinical data monitoring that will require more manual investigation of data include: 

Patients with hepatitis C diagnosis who have had an antibody test but not RNA or who have not been treated.  
Priority populations with a history of injecting drug use and/or incarceration.

Baseline Data

Your standardised whole patient equivalent can be found on correspondence from Services Australia relating to your PIP QI.

To identify the number of people with a coded hepatitis C diagnosis, you can search either your clinical software or data extraction software for hepatitis C. Please include the total of all possible codes for hepatitis C e.g. (hepatitis C, hepatitis C infection, hepatitis C eradicated etc).

The report you generate can be exported to excel. The spreadsheet can then be used as a hepatitis C register for your practice. You can add columns as necessary to ensure each patient with hepatitis C is offered testing, treatment, care plan, referral and/or liver cancer surveillance as appropriate. This may also assist with completing the demographic section of the baseline data spreadsheet.

Depending on the data extraction software available to you from your PHN, you may be able to use it to identify antibody/RNA test results. Otherwise add columns in the spreadsheet to record the antibody test and RNA test results in the hepatitis C register spreadsheet you have created and audit each file.

Please see the ‘tools and templates’ page for ‘How To’ guides in the use of PENCAT and POLAR. Please see the ‘learn about hepatitis C’ page for training modules and upcoming live-facilitated education sessions to upskill in interpreting antibody/RNA blood results and general hepatitis C education.

Timepoint 1 Data

Please enter information for those patients identified in the baseline data as having chronic hepatitis C or an unknown hepatitis C status. Please enter the result of the RNA test, whether the patient was started on treatment and if cure (SVR4 or SVR12) has been confirmed.

The search function on your clinical software and your data extraction software becomes invaluable when you are doing your PDSAs (Plan, Do, Study, Act). You can use it to search for certain factors indicated for testing, including ethnicity, diagnoses, social history, medication etc. Consider searching for patients who have attended in the last 2 years rather than just the RACGP definition of active patients (which is having attended 3 times in the last two years).

Example PDSAs can be found on the ‘tools and templates’ page.

Timepoint 2 Data

Please enter outcomes for all patients identified in Timepoint 1.

Please enter the number of additional patients you have identified since submitting Timepoint 1 data then the outcomes for these additional patients (result of RNA, treatment initiation, SVR4 or SVR12).

Tools

These step-by-step guides will help you conduct data search activities in your clinical software.

You may also find it useful to capture your findings in the following template:

Data search spreadsheet

This will help you when you need to report your data as part of the project.

Go back to the Project overview

Go on to Stage 3: Clinical audit