DIN members are encouraged to provide data to DIN which through CompuData is made available to the Pharmaceutical industry for Pharmaco-epidemiology research. Becoming a Data Provider will substantially reduce the cost of your DIN membership.
All profit gained from the sale of data supplied by members must, by the Constitution of DIN, be returned to the membership, usually in the form of goods and services.
Profits from data sales will be used to support development of specialised software for
users, postgraduate education and clinical audit. These are expected to provide the means
by which practising doctors will be encouraged to improve their recording of clinical data.
Who are the members?
Any working clinician can join DIN - data provision is not compulsory.
Our Data Panel consists at present of 260 + Meditel practices recruited almost entirely from the best data providers used in the original Meditel - CompuFile data scheme.
The typical DIN panel member has generally had a clinical computing system in place for 3+ years and makes increasingly full use of it as general practice adapts to the demands of the new NHS.
They are encouraged to express their health care communication needs, interests and concerns among their professional colleagues through the medium of the DIN Supervisory Board.
Where are DIN members?
The DIN panel is represented in every part of England, Scotland and Wales. Furthest practice north is Orkney!
The membership is somewhat biased toward the south of England due to the location of the core DIN activities in Surrey.
How do they provide their data to DIN?
via DIN RAPID reports
In Summary, DIN RAPID -
DIN RAPID Reports has been tested by Meditel for compatibility with its System 5
software and have been awarded third party accreditation.
What safeguards does DIN apply to the data?
For the patient:
DIN scrupulously follows the standards laid down by the Committee on Standards of Data Extraction (by organisations external to the practice) of the GMSC. This means we extract only these patient identifiers:
For the data user:
DIN uses advanced extraction software which works directly on the data file not on the indexes. (Other organisations use extraction programs which rely on the index files to the practice's data. These are known to have been repeatedly corrupted in the past).
A comprehensive series of data download trials have demonstrated the extremely robustness of this system and its excellent reliability.
After extraction and reading into the DIN database the data follows the same path that it did under the Meditel regime, i.e. directly to CompuFile for analysis and onward transmission.
How do we measure data quality?
DIN assesses data quality by individual GP using some of the principles of clinical audit. We currently assess data quality on the following simple criteria:
How do we ensure continued data quality?
The DIN Board members have made use of their personal knowledge of the situation at the 'sharp end' of general practice to provide a practical solution.
Clinical audit is now an essential activity in General Practice. Compulsory postgraduate education leading to re-accreditation seems inevitable within the next few years.
DIN therefore is producing an audit package which allows the GP to do the following:
This allows the now compulsory clinical audit to become potentially profitable as well as educational for DIN data providers.
The GP can set his own standards for audit and can measure changes in practice activity month by month.
How do we reimburse our members for their data?
Indirectly
DIN is prepared in principle to pay members directly for their data but would prefer to use income from the sale of data to provide members with goods and services i.e. quality add-on software.
What services does DIN provide for members?
The FrontDesk Pro Appointments System
- written and developed by GP's and receptionists, all Meditel users and arguable the best available Meditel appointments package. Tested and third party accredited by Meditel it is provided and supported by
DIN at a major discount to its members.
Data Feedback Software
- Free to data-providing practices. The software runs under Windows on any 386 (or more powerful) machine, allowing practices to analyse their own data in a variety of ways including number of prescriptions issued, number of patients treated, number of days of therapy prescribed, number of prescriptions per patient per year, length of continuous therapy, average daily dose prescribed, intervals between prescriptions. Practices can choose to receive feedback of any three of the following: Angina prophylaxis, HRT, Hypertension, Lipis lowering drugs, Respiratory, Oral contraceptives, Systemic NSAIDs, Ulcer healing drugs.
Safescript - World Standard Drug Database
- A special discount to data-providing members. Unlike all other existing drug data-bases and electronic books, World Standard Drug Database is specifically designed for integration into coded (e.g. Read, ICD9/10) clinical record systems in hospitals,
pharmacies and general practice. Such integration permits active flagging of interactions and contraindications and problems in renal failure, liver disease and pregnancy and
lactation. In addition, flagging of drug ingredients associated with specified indications and side effects is available. World Standard Drug Database achieves its active flagging
through use of an unique comprehensive prescribing thesaurus which contains standardised terms related to the whole prescribing knowledge domain, including Read Codes version 1, 2 and 3, standard drug form terms, 7000 ingredients cross referenced to Read Codes where possible, standard dosage regimens, unlimited length interactive messages by Dr Ivan Stockley, pharmacological actions, liver disease, renal failure,
pregnancy, lactation, patient messages and prescriber messages. Safescript Interactive allows browsing of World Standard Drug Database and addition of patient information on diseases and current medication and the active checking of proposed new medication for possible interactions and contraindications. Safescript Interactive needs a PC running
Windows with 4 Mb RAM and 12 Mb hard disk space.
DIN plans very soon to supervise a national clinical database of sufficient quality to allow original clinical research to be carried out on its members' data. It also intends to run a large nation wide area communications network exclusively for clinical purposes, with links to the NHS-wide Network.