National Health Advisory Notification of Possible duplication of 'WA - WC' series NHI Numbers ADVISORY SUMMARY: There is a small risk that WA-WC series NHI numbers may be duplicated and display data associated with two people within the same record. A medical warning (see below) is being applied to the affected range of WA-WC series NHI numbers.
FOR THE ATTENTION OF: Received this email directly 1) DHB and Ambulance Single Points of Contact 2) DHB Emergency Planners / Managers 3) Public Health Unit Managers 4) Healthline Forward required 5) Medical Officers of Health 6) Chief Medical Officer 7) Director of Nursing 8) Relevant clinical and non-clinical staff in your DHB including on-call staff and labs 9) GP Liaison Officers 10) Communications Managers 11) Any other deemed necessary by your organisation
ACTIONS: 1. Recipients from groups 1-4 (above) acknowledge the receipt of this e-mail to nhcc_spoc@moh.govt.nz, other recipients need not acknowledge 2. Forward internally within your organisation as per the 'attention of section' above 3. PHU Managers to please forward to Medical Officers of Health who may not be on the distribution list above. 4. Please forward to your primary care contacts including: general practitioners, accident and minor facilities, pharmacists and primary health organisations in your region. ADVISORY The Ministry is aware of a potential problem with issuing "W" series National Health Index (NHI) numbers. The NHI system has been issuing these numbers nationally since 16 March 2018, but it has been brought to our attention that a block of 46,000 "W" series numbers was assigned by Whakatane hospital in the 1990s, prior to their local systems being integrated with the national NHI system These numbers were all deactivated and a process was undertaken to strip this data out of health sector systems more than a decade ago. All affected individuals at that time were set up with new NHI numbers in the national system. However, it appears some numbers have been included on paper documentation and subsequently entered into DHBs' systems (e.g. lab and radiology systems) at the time. In these cases it is possible that two patients (one recent and one historical) may be sharing data under a single NHI.