Dear Accident Compensation Corporation,

Under the Official Information Act 1982 I request: -

The citations and ACC project names for all research, studies and ACC projects, conducted from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012, which involved the use of personal/unique identifiers (e.g., NHI Number, ACC Claim Number, ACC45 Number, Date of Injury, ACC Claim Dates, Date of Birth, First Name, Last Name, Address) to link external health datasets (e.g., General Practice data, Primary Health Care data, HealthStat data, Health Tracker data, Ministry of Health’s National Minimum Dataset data (NMDS), National Health Index, Health Practitioners Index, et al) with ACC claim datasets.

Please contact me should you require any clarification of this request.

I would appreciate if ACC would acknowledge my OIA request upon receipt, then notify me again once this OIA request has been assigned for processing and the assigned reference number for this request.

I anticipated provision of the above information by 1 August 2014

Yours faithfully,

Bronwyn Pullar

Dear Claire Stearne,

Thank you for response of 23 July 2014 seeking clarification of my request.

You refer to data-matching between ACC and MoH (Ministry of Health) injury records for the purposes of ACC’s bulk funding of MoH/DHB’s for their provision of injury services, and ACC’s provision of ACC claim injury information to Statistics NZ.

These matters are of no interest to me, because they involve lawful activities which fall within legislative boundaries, and they do not involve the broad collection of ACC clients non injury health information from external health databases for “research/study” purposes, as outlined in my original OIA request of 4 July 2014.

I also note your comment that ACC research is subject to “robust ethical standards” and “ACC has a committee and a set of guidelines to ensure these requirements are met.”

Again, I am unsure of the purpose for inclusion of this comment, as ACC's Research Ethics Committee has no legal authority for ethical standards, ethics consents or ethics approval.

Rather, it is my understanding that the Ministry of Health Ethics Committee is the sole legitimate authority with the legal powers to grant ethical consent and approval for health and disability research involving ACC data and ACC claimants, and thus they establish the ethical standards and legislative requirements to be adhered to, not ACC.

This understanding is confirmed by the ACC publication - “Research Ethics at ACC - Summary of Guidelines for Staff Research Ethics at ACC Summary of Guidelines for Staff” which confirms the ACC Research Ethics Committees “is not an accredited Health and Disability Ethics Committee and is not entitled to give ethics approval for any particular investigation. This is done by Ministry of Health Regional Committees and a Multi-regional Committee.”

However, I do understand there is a mandatory requirement for any research proposal, involving ACC data and ACC claimants, to be reviewed by the ACC Research Ethics Committee, and this review must happen prior to any research proposal being submitted to the MoH Ethics Committee for ethics consent and approval.

To assist you, I have simplified and clarify my Official Information Act 1982 request as follows:

1) Please provide the citations for all ACC related research since 1 January 2009 which has involved the collection of ACC client’s non injury and co morbid health data (e.g., asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, mental health condition, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, cancer or other conditions, non injury prescription information and non injury laboratory test results etc) from external health data bases (e.g., General Practice data, Primary Health Care data, HealthStat data, Health Tracker data, Prescription information, Laboratory test results, Secondary Health Care Data - MoH, DHB’s et al) and linking of that data to ACC claim data and datasets.

2)Please advise - Has ACC ever collected ACC clients non injury and co morbid health information from external databases for research purposes, in such a form that it would then allow ACC to then link the non injury and co morbid health information to an individual’s ACC claim file?

3)Please advise - Has ACC created new datasets of ACC clients, based upon their non injury and co-morbid health conditions? That is, has ACC created new datasets identifying ACC clients with, and without co-morbid or non injury health conditions (e.g., asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, mental health condition, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, cancer or other conditions) on the basis of a diagnosis, or the prescribing of a medication associated with those conditions?

4) Please advise - Has ACC ever used the non injury and co morbid health data, collected for the purposes of co-morbidity research since 2009, to administrate any individual’s ACC claim?

5) Please advise - What is the ACC internal code/project name(s) used by ACC to reference the co morbidity research, and any work being undertaken by ACC based upon the non injury and co morbid health data collected about ACC clients for co morbidity research purposes.

I look forward to receive the above information.

Yours sincerely,

Bronwyn Pullar