MDS Online Help

Version 3.2

Main Page

Set Current Division

This appears only if your logon is registered against multiple divisions. Select the divison you wish to work with from the drop down box and click the "Change" button.

Your "Current Division" is displayed on the menu bar at the top right of the page. The Current Division affects many aspects of the behaviour of the application. Put simply, all of your actions are limited to your Current Division. For example, "New Patient" will add a patient to your current division so it must be set BEFORE clicking "New Patient". When you "View" a patient, only your current division is searched, so it must be set correctly. The lists of General Practitioners (GPs) and Allied Health Professional (AHPros) are specific to each division.

New Patient

Click on this link to create a new patient record from scratch.

Patient Key

To View, Edit, Delete or add session information to a patient you must enter the patient key in the "Patient Key" input box and press "View". If the patient with that Patient Key is found in your division then you will be presented with the "Patient View" described below. It has buttons to Edit or Delete the patient information, also described below.

(If the patient key is not found you will receive an error message like: "Patient key PK-12121 not found in division 1")

If you have incorrectly entered or forgotten a patient key it can be difficult to retrieve it as the data is de-identified. The second best option is to search all records in the "Data Download" file according to the information you have available. The best option is to keep good records of the patient keys (unique identifiers).

Patient Page

The Patient Form may be presented in three modes:

• empty for "New Patient"
• read-only for "View" or to confirm changes after "Save"
• filled for "Edit"

The following fields are required: Patient Key, G.P code and Referral Date. Patient Key is in the Patient section at the top, G.P code and Referral Date are in the Referral section. These fields must be non-empty and valid to save the patient record, otherwise you will receive either a "popup" message and/or errors message. The incorrect fields will be highlighted. The GP can either be selected from the GP list or, if they are not already on the list, the full name can be added in the "GP New" field. See GP/AHPro List Page for instructions on editing this list.

The GP and AHPro lists are per-division. If you add a new GP or AHPro then it will only be added to the current division. If a GP or AHPro operates in multiple divisions then they must be entered into each.

Patient Key Field

Since all data gathered by this application is de-identified, patient records are stored by a "Patient Key". This must be unique within a division and it is each division's responsibility to record the patient key for each patient. This allows a division to enter a new patient after a GP referral and then later return to the same patient to add information regarding each session with an Allied Health Professional.

More information on PATIENT DATA in Frequently Asked Questions.

Referrals Section

A patient may have one or more referrals. Only one referral is shown at a time, usually the most recent. The Patient page contains a referral tab bar which displays the dates of the various referrals and indicates which is currently being displayed. Click a referral's date to view it instead. Further referrals can be added by clicking on the "Add New Referral" link when viewing a patient. If there are multiple referrals then a link to "Delete Referral" is also displayed. Referrals are displayed in date order.

New Referral

The program allows for up to 12 sessions (6 + 6) per patient within a 12 month period from the initial referral date. When patients complete their first 6 sessions they are required to attend their GP for a review, before a further 6 sessions are allowed (if required). This review is NOT considered a new referral unless the patient has developed a new mental health problem or is being referred to a different AHP. Therefore, if a patient uses 12 or less sessions within 12 months from the original referral the same referral is maintained for reporting purposes in the MDS against the patient key throughout these sessions. If more than than the 12 sessions are required beyond the first 12 months of any given referral, a new referral must be issued.

A new referral is issued under these circumstances:

• a new patient is referred for the first time for a presenting mental health condition
• an existing patient who has previously been referred to an AHP but has used up all 12 sessions within a 12 month period and is requiring further sessions
• an existing patient has presented with a new mental health condition and is being referred for treatment

It is important to maintain the same patient key for a single patient within the MDS - regardless of the number of referrals - in order to identify how many sessions in total each patient has had across the lifespan of the program.

How do I add a new referral to the MDS? (Link to FAQs)

Referral Date

The referral dates, and other dates, should be entered as day/month/year. For example, Christmas 2003 is 25/12/2003. Please, check the date is correctly stored on the read-only view on the confirmation page. If the year is left off then the current year is assumed.

Where a patient has been re-referred (i.e., a new referral for the same patient rather than additional sessions following review), by entering the subsequent referral date the referral table splits into two, allowing referral information to be entered separately for each referral date.

Referral Conclusion

In the referral table is a field labeled "conclusion" in which to indicate the way in which the referral concluded. When this field is completed and saved, it is no longer possible to enter additional session information.

Additional Sessions Allocated

On each referral, there is an additional sessions tick box which is optional. This indicates that the patient was allocated additional sessions following the review session. This is independent of the number of recorded sessions.

The BOiMHC? program allows for up to 12 sessions per patient per calendar year. Any further sessions will require a new referral.

Extra Referral Information

Divisions may be involved in additional trial programs such as T-CBT and Suicide Prevention. These programs require extra information to be collected. Divisions involved in these programs will have an 'Extra' section displayed. The fields displayed in this section depend on the program but will be a combination of:

• Referral Type: The program the patient is being referred under
• Referrer: How the patient was referred

Save

There are two "Save" buttons on this page, they are equivalent. One appears below the patient and referral details and the other below the session details. They save the current state of the patient and session data.

Sessions by date

Session data can be entered here. Six sessions are displayed by default, however if all six are used, save the patient data and go to the "Edit" mode. An additional six sessions will appear.

There can be any number of sessions stored for a patient. They will be listed in order of Session Date (this is not necessarily the order they were entered in).

The Session data section has two requied fileds: AHPro (Allied Health Professional) and a valid Session Date. The AHPro, like the GP, can be selected from the list or added by name with AHPro "New". (Unused GPs and AHPros will be deleted nightly)

Sessions can be deleted by checking the "Delete" checkbox and then pressing "Save".

More information on SESSION DATA in Frequently Asked Questions.

No Shows

For each session there is a tick box to indicate that the patient did not attend the session. This feature is optional, for divisional data collection purposes only. However if your division chooses to utilise this feature it is very important to note these sessions as non-attendances.

More information on NO SHOWS in Frequently Asked Questions.

Extra Session Information

Divisions may be involved in additional trial programs such as T-CBT and Suicide Prevention. These programs require extra information to be collected. Divisions involved in these programs will have an 'Extra' section displayed. The fields displayed in this section depend on the program but will be a combination of:

• Session Modality: How the session was conducted

Download Page

Patient

You may download or view the patient data for all years or a selected year, half or quarter.

All divisions

Choosing "All divisions" allows those administrators who are managing multiple divisions to download or view all the data at once.

Download

The "Download" button is used to select a download (patient, referral or session) in Comma Separated Values (CSV) format (in most cases, the data will automatically be inported into Excel).

View

The "View" button is used to view the data (patient or session) in the browser without downloading it.

Referral

You may download or view the referral data for all years or a selected year, half or quarter.

Measures

It is possible to include outcome measure data by checking the "Measures" box.

Sessions Data

You may download or view the session data for all years or a selected year, half or quarter.

Data Dictionary

You may download or view the meta data (field definitions) for both the patient and session data sets. This is useful in ensuring the data entered is what a given field requires.

Upload Page

NOTE: The upload format has changed from the previous release of the MDS to allow for the new fields and structure.

You may upload patient, referral, and session data in CSV format as an alternative to entering the data directly into the online BOMH MDS system. The upload data format is the same as the download format. See the "Data Dictionary" section above for detailed information about the columns of the data files.

More information on UPLOADING DATA in Frequently Asked Questions.

Patients

Uploaded patient data is cumulative, that is, new patients are added to the patients stored in the database. Optionally patient data in the upload can overwrite existing data.

Use the "Browse" button to locate the patient CSV file.

Overwrite duplicate patients

By default the upload will fail if it includes a patient who has previously been uploaded. By choosing to Overwrite duplicate patients" you can force the upload to replace existing patient details with the newly uploaded details.

Test Only

When this checkbox is selected the uploaded data is checked for errors but is not inserted into the database. This can be useful when testing your upload processes. Note that this feature is "locked" on by default as it is possible to cause data loss by uploading incorrect data. Please contact support@boimhc.org to request uploads be enabled.

Patient upload file format

Whereas in the previous version of the MDS there were two upload files there are now three:

patient

Contains the patient specific details that do not (or extremely rarely) change.

referral

Contains the details of a specific referral and patient details that may change.

session

Contains the session specific details.

There are also three extra fields, two of these are on the referral record:

Additional Sessions

Were additional sessions allocated to the client for this referral.

Conclusion

Has the referral concluded and if so how.

One extra field was added to the session record

No Show

Can be used to indicate if a client did not attend a scheduled session.

Note also that an additional link field was added to the session table, gp_ref_date. This is needed to allow the sessions to be linked to the correct referral record.

Strategic Data Pty Ltd have prepared a conversion tool that can be used as an interim measure for divisions that cannot immediately support the new format. This tool will take the 2 old format upload files and produce 3 files complying with the new format. Please contact support@boimhc.org for more information or assistance.

The file must be CSV formatted according to the following table.

column	label	type
id *	Patient ID	int(11)
division *	Division ID	int(11)
division_name	Division Name	varchar(50)
patient_key	Patient Key	varchar(50)
birth_year	Year of Birth	year(4)
gender	Gender	enum('Male','Female')
lang_at_home	Language	enum('English', 'Italian', 'Greek', 'Cantonese', 'Mandarin', 'Arabic', 'Vietnamese', 'Unknown')
lang_other	Other	text
eng_level	English level	enum('Very Well','Well','Not Well','Not at All','Unknown')
aboriginal	Aboriginal	enum('Yes','No','Unknown')
torres_si	Torres Strait Islander	enum('Yes','No','Unknown')

Referrals

Referrals are handled the same as Patients, the data is cumulative and duplicates are not allowed unless "Overwrite duplicate referrals" is used. One patient cannot have multiple referrals on the same day.

Use the "Browse" button to locate the session CSV file.

Referral upload file format

The file must be CSV formatted according to the following table.

column	label	type
division *	Division ID	int(11)
division_name	Division Name	varchar(50)
patient_key	Patient Key	varchar(50)
id *	Referral ID	int(11)
patient *	Patient ID	int(11)
gp *	G.P.	int(11)
gp_name	GP Name	varchar(50)
gp_ref_date	Referral Date	date
lives_alone	Lives Alone	enum('Yes','No','Unknown')
low_income	Low Income Earner	enum('Yes','No','Unknown')
education	Education Level (equiv)	enum('Primary or below','Secondary: Year 10','Secondary: Year 11','Secondary: Year 12','Tertiary')
postcode	Patient Postcode	text
gp_postcode	G.P. Postcode	text
additional_sessions	Additional Sessions	tinyint(1)
conclusion	Conclusion	enum('Treatment complete','Patient could not be contacted','Patient refused treatment','Patient referred elsewhere','Treatment incomplete but referral closed')
icd_f1	F1 Alcohol & Drug Use	tinyint(1)
icd_f2	F2 Psychotic Disorders	tinyint(1)
icd_f3	F3 Depression	tinyint(1)
icd_f4	F4 Anxiety Disorders	tinyint(1)
icd_f5	F5 Unexplained Somatic	tinyint(1)
icd_other	Other Diagnosis	text
icd_unknown	Unknown	tinyint(1)
st_diagnosis	Diagnostic Assesment	tinyint(1)
st_psycho_ed	Psycho-education	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_behaviour	Behavioural interventions	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_cognitive	Cognitive interventions	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_relaxation	Relaxation strategies	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_skills	Skills training	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_other	Other CBT interventions	text
st_interpersonal	Interpersonal Therapy	tinyint(1)
st_other	Other Strategies	text
med_benzo	Benzodiazepines&Anxiolytics	tinyint(1)
med_antidep	Antidepressants	tinyint(1)
med_pheno	Phenothiazines&Tranquillisers	tinyint(1)
med_mood	Mood Stabilisers	tinyint(1)
previous_care	Prior Mental Health Care	enum('Yes','No','Unknown')

Outcome Measures

In addition to the above items which must be supplied, it is also possible to supply outcome measure data. Since there is no specific requirement to collect particular measures these fields are all optional and it is only necessary to supply the appropriate ones for a particular division. The best way to determine the exact file format for a division is to ensure that the correct measures are selected in the "Admin | Measures List" page and then enter a few test records. Download the referral data for the period containing the test records making sure to elect to include "Measures" data by ticking the box on the download page. The resulting file is in the same format required for uploads and as such can be used as an example.

For further information on Outcome Measures refer to FAQ

Extra Referral Information

Divisions may be involved in additional trial programs such as T-CBT and Suicide Prevention. These programs require extra information to be collected. What information is required depends on the program that the division is involved in. The best way to determine the exact file format for a division is to enter a few test records containing the extra fields. Download the referral data for the period containing the test records making sure to elect to include "Extra" data by ticking the box on the download page. The resulting file is in the same format required for uploads and as such can be used as an example.

Sessions

Uploaded session data is cumulative by default. It is possible to gain access to an advanced feature which allows for the replacement of session data for specific periods.

Use the "Browse" button to locate the session CSV file.

Advanced session features

Some divisions may find it useful to be able to replace entire periods of session data. This may provide a simpler data syncing process between a local system and the MDS system. If this would be useful contact support@boimhc.org to discuss enabling this feature.

Session upload file format

The file must be CSV formatted according to the following table.

column	label	type
division *	Division ID	int(11)
division_name	Division Name	varchar(50)
patient_key	Patient Key	varchar(50)
gp_ref_date	Referral Date	date
id *	Session ID	int(11)
referral *	Session Referral ID	int(11)
ahpro *	A.H.Pro	int(11)
ahpro_name	AHPro Name	varchar(50)
ses_date	Session Date	date
type	Type	enum('Group','Individual')
duration	Duration	enum('0-30 mins','31-45 mins','46-60 mins','over 60 mins')
copayment	Co-payment Amount	decimal(6,2)
no_show	No Show	tinyint(1)
st_diagnosis	Diagnostic Assesment	tinyint(1)
st_psycho_ed	Psycho-education	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_behaviour	Behavioural interventions	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_cognitive	Cognitive interventions	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_relaxation	Relaxation strategies	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_skills	Skills training	tinyint(1)
st_cbt_other	Other CBT interventions	text
st_interpersonal	Interpersonal Therapy	tinyint(1)
st_other	Other Strategies	text

Extra Session Information

Divisions may be involved in additional trial programs such as T-CBT and Suicide Prevention. These programs require extra information to be collected. What information is required depends on the program that the division is involved in.The best way to determine the exact file format for a division is to enter a few test records containing the extra fields. Download the session data for the period containing the test records making sure to elect to include "Extra" data by ticking the box on the download page. The resulting file is in the same format required for uploads and as such can be used as an example.

Upload All Files

Click the "Upload All Files" button to begin the upload process.

Data upload notes

• The first row must consist of the column names listed above (not the label, that is for your information only) and must also be in the order presented above. The download data is an ideal example
• Types used in the type column below are fully described on the MySQL website at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/data-types.html.
• Tick a box style questions from the web interface are coded as tinyint(1) where 0 = Not ticked and 1 = ticked.
• For enum style columns, you must use one of the options as specified within the brackets exactly as it appears in the specification below.
• The columns marked with an asterix (*) can be left blank for an upload (although they must exist) these are looked up from existing data or generated during the import process. If you download your data they will appear as numbers.
• The bolded columns above represent the compulsory fields. It these do not have valid data for all records in the upload the entire upload will be rejected. Other fields must exist within the upload file but may be empty.
• Your division name must appear exactly as it does when you log into the MDS system.
• Patient records for each referral and referral records for each session must exist. Errors will be reported if this is not the case.

Admin Page

This page allows access to the various admin functions. These include the data summary, management of the GP and AH Professional lists, the outcome measure list and the most rectntly added report selection

Data Summary Page

The data summary provides a breakdown of patient and session numbers tabulated by financial year and number of sessions. This summary can be a useful tool for finding patients that have not had the expected number of sessions. The number of patients (actually referrals) with 0, 1-5, 6 and 7 or more sessions are displayed and clicking on these numbers allows you to get a list of the patients (by Patient Key) falling into that category.

Note: there has been some confusion regarding the session counting scheme, in particular, the differences between the data summary and the download data. The short answer is that the session download file is collected by session date, while the data summary is grouped by referral date. This means some sessions that occur in 2005-06 are attached to referrals which occured in 2004-05 and will appear in the 2004-05 row of the data summary.

The reason for this difference is that data summary rows need to be consistent; the "Patients with N Sessions" columns refer to patients so a patient with 3 sessions in 2004-05 and 3 in 2005-06 should be counted in the "6 sessions" column (as one patient). This patient and the associated sessions are counted with the financial year of the referral (and so a patient with multiple referrals may be actually counted in different years).

The "Total Sessions" is the sum of the sessions referred to by the "Patient with N Sessions" columns, the example patient above would add 6 to this total in the year 2004-05.

Report Page

The report selection page allows users to view and download basic frequency data for various items collected. The reports may be date filtered. If more advanced analysis is required import the data from the Download into your preferred program. (e.g. Excel)

GP/AHPro List Page

These pages allows Divisions to manage their own GP and AH Professional codes (they can be renamed and deleted from here). It is also possible to identify which patients are assigned to a particular GP or AHP, this can be useful if a typo has resulted in duplicate codes for the same practitioner appearing in the database. It is also an essential part of removing a GP or AHP code since they cannot be removed until all associated patients have been deleted. It is possible to assign all patients from one GP/AHPro to another by changing the codes to be the same. You will then be asked to confirm the change with a message like "Do you want to permanently assign all referrals from Dr.Smith to GP48? Yes No".

More information on GP/AHPro CODES in Frequently Asked Questions.

Measures List Page

This page allows the selection of outcome measures being implemented by the Division so that they appear on the Patient Form. It is then possible to enter total scores at assessment and review, or to click on the calc function to enter item scores from which the totally is automatically calculated. The most commonly used patient outcome measures include the Kessler 10 (K10), Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) and the Health of the Nation Outcome Scales (HoNOS). However, the majority of outcome measures used by Divisions can be entered. For the DASS it is possible to enter subscale items (stress, anxiety, depression). This function is enabled from the admin page. Instructions on how to select and activate measures for your division click here

Logout

When you have finished using the application, click on the "Logout" link to prevent unauthorized access. You will be redirected to the introduction page.

Security Notes

Please keep the username and password secret. There is no privilege distinction between users within a division. Any user in a division can access or modify the data.

The application works over a secure connection.