Centre for Health Record Linkage
(CHeReL)
Katie Irvine
Manager
Centre for Health Record Linkage
History in NSW
 Demand has outstripped supply
 In 2005 the Sax Institute commissioned Data
Linkage Australia to evaluate the case for a record
linkage facility
– recommended establishment of new facility as
joint venture between NSW Health and at least
two other institutions
– recommended a ‘distributed data repository’
design
Centre for Health Record Linkage
 Established in 2006
 Nine members
– ACT Health
– Cancer Institute NSW (the host organisation)
– NSW Clinical Excellence Commission
– NSW Health
– Sax Institute
– Universities of Newcastle, Sydney, NSW,
Western Sydney
 The Cancer Institute NSW is the host organisation
The CHeReL will
 create a master linkage key, consisting of ‘pointers’
to records for specific people in health-related data
sets
• will not contain health information about
individuals
 provide a mechanism for accessing linked data for:
• research
• planning of health services
• evaluation of health services
… for the public benefit
The CHeReL won’t
 hold health information other than that required for
the record linkage
 be a “repository” of linked health data
 carry out data analysis or research on linked health
data
(… it will carry out research on methodological
aspects of record linkage)
CHeReL services
 Extracts from the Master Linkage Key
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NSW Admitted Patient Data Collection
NSW Emergency Department Data Collection
NSW Central Cancer Registry
NSW Pap Test Register
RBDM/ABS death data
RBDM birth registration data
NSW Midwives Data Collection
Perinatal Mortality Data
45 and Up study
Corresponding datasets for ACT
 Linkage of external datasets with MLK extracts
 Linkage of other datasets (incl. de-dup)
Current status of MLK
Currently 20.6 million records; ~ 6 million keys (people) from 9
datasets, many back to 1994
Approval Process
 Two-stage ethical approval
– approval for overall governance and operation of
CHeReL
– approval for individual projects
 Approval by the NSW Population and Health
Research Ethics Committee
 Data custodian approval required at each stage and
for each project
Recent Examples
 For reporting interval cancers
 Identification of possible duplicates
 To obtain risk factor, health outcome and health
service utilisation data for researchers
Contact
Katie Irvine
Manager
Centre for Health Record Linkage
Ph 8374 3515
Email: katie.irvine@cancerinstitute.org.au
Website: www.cherel.org.au