The Australian Government Department of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Data Collection Overview

Western Australian Midwives' Notification System (WA PDC)

Data Collection Sources

Midwives complete Midwives’ Notification of Case Attended (NOCA) MR15 form for all births within the scope of the collection.

Institutional environments

Midwives are required to provide the WA Department of Health with notifications of cases (births) attended. The midwife usually completes the form, however a medical officer may do so in the absence of a midwife. If no midwife or medical officer was present at the birth then the first qualified person to attend the woman should complete the form. Notifications are received predominantly via electronic data transmission, with the remainder (less than 100 per year) received in paper format. The information received in paper format is transcribed into a coded format. Western Australia’s statutory reporting requirements are outlined in the WA Health Act 1911, section 335. Under the Health Regulations 1994, midwives are required to provide the WA Department of Health with notifications of cases attended.

Relevance and Scope

The WA PDC receives data for any birth of at least 20 weeks gestation, or when the gestation is unknown, where the birth weight is at least 400 grams, including all live births and stillbirths. Information on women resident in WA who gave birth outside Western Australia are not included. The collection contains information on women who gave birth in WA and their babies.

Timeliness

There is a one to two year delay between the data collected and the publication, more commonly a two year gap. The most recent publication of Western Australia’s Mothers and Babies (previously Perinatal Statistics Western Australia) was May 2015 using data from 2012 with the 2013 data due to be released in 2016. Western Australia’s Mothers and Babies is produced annually.

Accuracy

The Maternal and Child Health personnel, check the data for completeness and, if necessary, follow-up for additional details. Completeness of case ascertainment for scope of WA PDC is validated against other data collections.

Accessibility

Reports are only available online and can be found at the Government of Western Australia website. The Maternal and Child Health Unit, Purchasing & System Performance, Division of the Department of Health, produce the annual report.
The most recent publication is Western Australia’s Mothers and Babies, 2012 (3MB PDF). In addition, a 5-year cohort report is published, the most recent being Perinatal, Infant and Maternal Morbidity in Western Australia 2008-2012 (2.3MB PDF).
Many additional data requests are received from external organisations and individuals. Data requests are encouraged and subject to confidentiality guidelines.

Interpretability

A guideline for interpreting information reported to the WA PDC (599.4KB PDF) is available online. There are three free text fields reported to the WA PDC. Conditions reported in these fields are transcribed to ICD-10-AM codes that best describe the free text reported.