The Clinical Audit Tool encryption, de-identification and geocoding process ensures that any patient data leaving a practice is kept secure and private, whilst also allowing aggregation and geospatial representation of this data.
The process may be summarised as follows:
- Data is collected from the clinical information system and saved as an encrypted extract file
- Data is de-identified via the FAT CAT process (Filtering and Anonymisation Tool for CAT)
- The de-identified data is tagged with a unique and encrypted code that can be matched with a geographical location in PAT CAT
- Data is aggregated in PAT CAT
Please note that the Australian Bureau of Statistics has updated their SA2 (full definition here) areas after the 2016 census. PAT CAT mapping will be updated to the new mapping as detailed here - currently planned over the 2017 Christmas period.