Using MedicineInsight data for research

The Australian Government Department of Health funded NPS MedicineWise in 2011 to establish and manage a longitudinal general practice data platform to improve the post-marketing surveillance of medicine use in Australia and support quality improvement activities in general practices.

MedicineInsight is the first large-scale, national primary care data program in Australia that extracts longitudinal patient information from the clinical software used in general practice.

MedicineInsight achieves better healthcare for all Australians by:

• supporting quality improvement in participating general practices
• supporting the safe use of new medicines
• informing future policy and primary care research
• supporting a sustainable Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) and Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS).

MedicineInsight provides a rich picture of Australia’s primary health care system and is a valuable data set for public health research purposes. MedicineInsight data is only available where a research proposal is determined to be in the public good.

Deidentified data are extracted from the clinical information systems that participating general practices use to manage patient records and write prescriptions. Data include information entered directly by GPs and practice staff as well as system-generated data such as the time and date that records are accessed.

A whole-of-practice retrospective data collection is conducted when a practice joins MedicineInsight. Subsequent extractions take incremental data, enabling the development of a longitudinal database in which deidentified patients within practices can be tracked over time.

MedicineInsight data is being used for a range of activities, some of which include:

• post-marketing surveillance of drugs prescribed for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and asthma, as well as antidepressants, anticoagulants, testosterone and antibiotics
  
• informing medicines policy, including a review of biological medicines used in general practice, monitoring the impact of changes to PBS restrictions for testosterone, and reviewing the use of antibiotics commonly used for respiratory tract infections
  
• supporting quality improvement in general practice by comparing practice activity with best practice guidelines, in clinical areas such as diabetes, stroke, COPD, depression and antibiotic use. This allows practice staff to reflect on current practice, identify areas for improvement and see where changes can be implemented
  
• primary care research, including evaluation of vaccination coverage, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, pain, obesity and lung cancer.

Below are a list of publications that demonstrate the merit of MedicineInsight as a national primary care database:

• Data Resource Profile: MedicineInsight, an Australian national primary health care database | International Journal of Epidemiology | Oxford Academic (oup.com)
• Validity of algorithms for identifying five chronic conditions in MedicineInsight, an Australian national general practice database | BMC Health Services Research | Full Text (biomedcentral.com)
• MedicineInsight-Validation-completeness-representativeness-plausibility_2020.pdf (nps.org.au)
• MedicineInsight-NDI-death-validation-study.pdf (nps.org.au)

See a list of NPS MedicineWise General Practice Insights Reports

See a list of approved projects using MedicineInsight data

Use the MedicineInsight Databook to help determine if the data available in MedicineInsight are suitable for your research project.

If MedicineInsight data will be suitable for your research, you may express an interest in the information collected through MedicineInsight as part of our application process. This process is overseen by an Independent Data Governance Committee.

Find out more about the MedicineInsight application process.

Building consumer and community involvement into your project is extremely valuable and is encouraged by NPS MedicineWise and the Data Governance Committee. Consumer and community involvement is brings together researchers and other stakeholders to make decisions about research priorities, policy and practice. Fundamentally it involves conducting research with the community, rather than to or for the community.

The method and level of involvement of consumers will depend on what the research project is about. A number of organisations and networks facilitate collaboration between researchers and consumers.

The Consumer and Community Health Research Network has developed helpful resources to support consumer and community involvement in health research.

Find out more about the Consumer and Community Health Research Network

The Health Issues Centre supports and informs consumers and the health sector to partner for health care improvements.

Find out more about the Health Issues Centre

Use the MedicineInsight Databook to help determine if the data available in MedicineInsight are suitable for your research project.