VACAR Annual Report 2011/12 - Ambulance Victoria

Patient confidentiality and ethical review
As a quality assurance initiative, ethical approval from the Department of Health Human
Research Ethics Committee is supported by 100 ethics approvals from Victorian hospitals for
the access to medical records. This successful program has resulted in the capture of almost
99% of all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests transported to a Victorian emergency department.
In accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) National
Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, all paper and electronic data are securely
stored at Ambulance Victoria, with strict access to authorised VACAR staff.
Missing data
The value of VACAR is partly due to its completeness of data capture. Missing data for all
variables remains relatively low for all variables (see Table 4). Periodic quality control checks
and data verification activities ensure the long-term validity of registry data.
Table 4: Number and
proportion of missing
data for select registry
variables, 2011/12
(n=5,225).
Patient Age 124 (2.4%)
Patient Gender 12 (0.2%)
Arrest Location Nil
Witnessed Status 45 (0.9%)
Bystander CPR 21 (0.4%)
Rhythm on Arrival 31 (0.6%)
EMS Response Time 36 (0.7%)
Outcome at Scene
Nil
Rhythm at Destination 7 (0.1%)
Hospital Discharge Status 24 (0.5%)
VACAR Annual Report 2011/12 Page 18