National Enrolment Service (NES) - Update 20
Progress:
Profile for Windows version 8.1is now available. Practices using this PMS can proceedto schedule a go live date for NES with their PHO.
Since the last update, the number of PHOs completing the rollout to their practices has increased to 23, with 34practices yet to adopt NES across 9 PHOs.The breakdown of remaining practices is:
PMS Software / No of practices to onboard / Breakdown by PHOBest Practice VIP / 5 / Central (3), WellSouth (2)
Intrahealth Profile for Mac / 1 / Central (1)
Intrahealth Profile for Windows / 16 / East Health (2), Midlands (1), NHC (1), Procare (2), Rotorua APHS (8), Rural Canterbury (1), WellSouth (1)
Medtech 32 / 11 / Midlands (2), Pegasus (8), WellSouth (1)
MyPractice / 1 / NHC (1)
The Ministry has identified the issues with these remaining practices and is working with their vendors and PHOs to resolve them. Some issues are linked to changes at the practice level such as practice mergers, or to a change of PMS software.
In addition to the above, there are 11 practices yet to re-enable NES in their Medtech PMS.The breakdown of remaining practices is:
PHO / No of practices to re-enable in Medtech / NotesMidlands Health Network / 1
Pegasus / 9 / Combining re-enablement with remaining onboarding
WellSouth / 1
Actions and next steps:
PHOs are reminded to ensure practices restart Medtech services in their PMS and run the gap catch up when they re-enable NES.Instructions on running the gap catch up are provided below. As practices re-enable and run the gap catch up there may be a number of notifications for your practice over the next few weeks that would normally have been received over the previous 3 months. Please make sure practices are receiving and keeping up with the processing and filing of their notifications.
Instructions for MedtechRunning multiple gap catch ups
These documents are also posted on the Ministry website on this page:
The next important stage in the implementation of NES is to remediate the small percentage of enrolment mismatches seen in the comparison between the existing CBF registers and enrolments held in NES. The Ministry will continue to engage with PHO data managers and Management Service Organisations contracted by PHOsto assess the scale of this work across practices, and to assess how to best focus resources on the remediation process.
Included in the important reminders later in this Update is a reminder to send information to the Ministry about new practices, ownership changes, mergers or closures. As the Health Provider Index (HPI) OrgIDs for practices are used to record enrolments against in NES it is essential that these are kept up to date. Once NES is accepted as business as usual for CBF payments, practices will receive payments for their enrolled population based on the HPI OrgID and the enrolments recorded against it. If the OrgID is incorrect for a practice, it will not be possible to calculate CBF funding for its population. Any changes at the practice level should be communicated to the Ministry via at least 10 working days prior to the change coming into effect.
Other NES activity
Please be aware that a separate notice about expired enrolment notifications was sent on Wednesday 20 September. The NES Nightly Update process that generates these expiry notifications is performing as expected and will be re-enabled as a daily process within NES once the current issue is addressed. The volume of notifications generated on 19 September resulted from the process being disabled for a 12 month period and all held messages being released in bulk.
All notifications of expired enrolments received last week should be examined by practices to check if a re-enrolment for the patient has been completed within the last three years, and steps taken to enrol the patient again if that is the case. PHOs should also be assisting practices to identify enrolments soon to expire so that where possible re-enrolment is completed prior to the expiry date.
The Ministry will continue to provide updates on this issue as work progresses, starting with advice on how PHOs can work with practices to identify the notifications that may have been generated for patients who had re-enrolled. This will eliminate the need to check every expiry notification received since 19 September. Note that these patients will need to be enrolled again in NES (not re-enrolled) as the notification will have ended their current enrolment.
TheHealth Identity Teamis providing data on the rate of duplicate NHI creation in PHOs as part of ongoing quality improvement processes. This will be an extension of the reports currently provided to DHBs. These reports will be shared with PHO champions so that trends can be identified and training targeted towards practices producing the greatest numbers of errors. The first duplicate reports will be sent out in October, so we ask that PHOs nominate a person responsible for collecting the reports. The Ministry will need their email and mobile number so they can receive alerts.The reports will be disseminated by electronic file transfer (EFT).
Initial trends show that a considerable number of practice staff are still going through the contact centre to create new NHI numbers, citing a variety of reasons why they aren’t using NES to do so. The majority of the reasons imply a lack of confidence on the part of front line staff and a fear of making identity errors. While caution is an appropriate quality in this area, it is important that practices train their staff in identity management so that NES can be effectively used as a health identity management tool. We ask that PHO champions encourage practice managers to invest in the ability of their front line staff to work in this area. In the long term it will improve the overall quality of health information across the health system. The Ministry contact centre will be available to assist in situations where difficult identity management issues arise, but they are now asking callers to use NES as their first point of call for creating and maintaining NHI records.
The Ministry has been alerted to the occasional case of enrolment confusion based on the use of incorrect NHI numbers by practices when completing enrolments. These kinds of errors would have existed prior to the use of NES, but NES allows them to be picked up in real time via the transfer notifications sent out when patients move between providers. The Ministry is working with PHO champions to develop suggested best practice for managing corrections in these situations. This will be circulated within a separate Update to champions.
One of the more complex health identity issues involves how to manage new born babies, particularly in cases of multiple births. The Health Identity Team at the Ministry has developed guidance on this topic that will be posted on the Ministry website. A notification will be sent to champions when this is available.
Vendor update
The next Medtech release will be a Patient Experience Survey-specific update (see below). It is scheduled to be released on 11 October 2017. An additional release will follow in November with a wide range of NES-specific fixes.
Compliance testing is in process with Valentia for their Indici PMS.
Patient Experience Survey
The next primary care Patient Experience Survey is scheduled for the week of 6-12 November. Medtech will issue a specific software release in early October that will provide an improved method of contact detail data capture for those patients eligible to take part in the survey.
Practices participating in the Survey from November onwards are encouraged to update their PMS with this upgrade. This upgrade will remove the need to save patient preferences in order to populate the patient preference field. This will be populated automatically using existing phone and email details in the PMS, so an ongoing focus on collecting email addresses is important.
The Survey process itself remains unchanged, and patients invited to participate still have the option to opt out (see below).
Note: It is particularly important for practices that have been participating in the Survey through the pilot method of data capture, to update their PMS with the new Medtech release in time for the November Survey. The new Medtech release mirrors the pilot method of data capture, so the pilot method will no longer be supported. The Ministry will work with the five PHOs that are currently using this method to ensure their practices are updated to the new Medtech release in time for the November Survey.
The Ministry is working with other PMS vendors to deliver the same method of data capture.
Collection of mobile numbers for the patient experience survey.
In addition to email invitations, SMS invitations will also be used to invite Maori and Pasifika patients to increase their participation in the Survey.
The last Update mentioned the need to correctly format mobile numbers to avoid patients’ contact details being missed for the Survey. The scheduled Medtech release will address this issue, allowing a range of mobile number formats to be safely submitted for the Survey. As the primary method of invitation to the Survey is via email, practices are encouraged to make sure they record a contact email for their patients.
Opt out process:
Patients can opt out of the Survey in three ways:
i) by telling their practice they are not interested in participating and the front desk staff ticking the ‘opt out’ box,
ii) by unsubscribing from the invitation email/SMS, or
iii) by simply ignoring the invitation.
If patients don’t wish to participate in the survey, practices are encouraged not to use the opt-out function as this opts them out of the survey permanently. Encourage people to ignore the invitation this round, but keep open the option to provide feedback in the future. Remember that even frequent attenders with an appointment every month only have a 20% chance of being invited to participate in the survey more than once in a year.
Video about the primary care Patient Experience Survey
General practices taking part in the patient experience survey can now show a video in their clinic waiting room that talks about what the survey is and encourages patients to participate. Instructions for accessing the video are provided at the end of this Update.
Issues
The number of practices unable to send Qualifying Encounter Dates (QEDs) to the Ministry has reduced significantly. There are now only around 12 practices affected. The Ministry is monitoring progress on this issue and will continue to provide updates until it is resolved.
If practices wish to disable NES again for any reason, they should inform their PHO so it can be considered within the broader picture of the national system. PHOs should contact Joel Brown () or Alastair McLean () at the Ministry to discuss the best course of action.
Important reminders
When practices live on NES are running their quarterly PHO Import they should ensure they follow the instructions in the screen shots on the following pages to avoid PHO imports over-writing more recent data.
If the ownership or structure of practices changes, please ensure MOH is advised () so that any identifier/credential requirements or data actions can be confirmed prior to the change.
If practices experience issues with addresses in eSam when validating patient records they should email the address details (not the patient details) to for investigation.
Don’t forget practices are able to look up patients’ Community Services Card details within the PMS. This saves time contacting the MSD help line.
Any questions or concerns please contact
Alastair McLean, Project Manager
DDI 04 8163312
Mob 021514940
Primary care Patient Experience Survey video
The video is in English, with English, Māori, Samoan and Tongan subtitles. Each video can be downloaded from the link below in wmv, mp4 and avi formats; or you can order it on DVD or USB from JadriaCincotta at . All four versions will be provided on the DVD or USB.
Download instructions
(If you need assistance, please contact Dylan Moran on 021 813 591 or .)
To download all four videos in the same file type: ensure you are on ‘list view’ – the icon on the top right should be 6 squares. If it is instead 3 dots and 3 long lines, click on that to change it to list view.
Then hover over the folder with the file type you would like and select Download.
To download individual videos: double click on the folder of the video type you would like, hover over the video, then click the download icon which appears on the top left.
How to run the PHO Import when you are live on NES
Confirming the NHI numbers for your patients and synchronising the PMS details with the NHI when patients arrive or are enrolled means that you no longer need to get NHI updates from the PHO Import. Use the instructions on the following pages.
Medtech Users
Untickall optionsexcept “Update patient enrolment funding status”
More info can be found at:
MyPractice Users
Untick the Import NHI Numbers