Medical Warning System
The Medical Warning System (MWS) is an alert service linked to National Health Index numbers.
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On this page
The Medical Warning System (MWS) warns health care providers of known risk factors that could be important when making clinical decisions about patient care. This includes drug allergies or medical conditions.
Publications
Scope
Purpose
Purpose
The MWS is a value-added service closely aligned with the National Health Index. It is designed to warn health care providers of the presence of any known risk factors that may be important when making clinical decisions about patient care.
Content
Content
The MWS comprises the following features:
- medical warnings incorporating adverse medical reactions and significant medical conditions
- event summaries incorporating identification of the facility where the patient’s medical record is located
Start date
The MWS was initially part of the National Master Patient Index, implemented in 1977.
Guide for use
Specifically aimed at health care providers.
Classification codes are not fully reported and are not validated. Generally, the description of the drug and the reaction is of most interest to users.
For further details refer to the Medical Warnings System (MWS) Data Dictionary.
Collection methods – guide for providers
The responsibility for maintaining the content of the MWS rests primarily with its users, the health care providers.
The codes for Adverse Medical Reactions and Significant Medical Conditions are taken from the International Classification of Diseases manual currently in use nationally in New Zealand.
For Adverse Medical Reactions, external cause codes from the ICD-9-CM-A range E930–E949 are used.
For Significant Medical Conditions, diagnosis codes from the ICD-9-CM-A range 001–999 are used.
Frequency of updates
Ongoing, as required.
Security of data
Access to the MWS is restricted to health care providers approved by the Sector Operations.
Access to the MWS features is dependent upon a valid NHI number (also known as HCU identifier) for the healthcare user being provided.
Privacy issues
Under the Health Information Privacy Code 1994, health care users must be advised that information may be entered on the MWS and that they have the right to refuse permission for this to be entered.
National reports and publications
The Centre for Adverse Reactions Monitoring (CARM) receives information from GPs and hospitals. Eventually this will be provided directly from the MWS. CARM aims to determine which adverse reactions are life-threatening to patients.
Data provision
None.