Over one million people are registered with the NDSS, which provides support for people with diabetes, as well as providing access to subsidised products required by people with diabetes, such as blood glucose test strips and sharps.

Diabetes Australia engaged AHA to undertake an audit of the registrant information held within the National Diabetes Services Scheme (NDSS) database.  AHA conducted an audit of a random and representative sample of NDSS registrant details to test the reliability of the NDSS database, primarily to determine whether there are people registered on the NDSS who do not have diabetes.  A secondary objective was to determine whether diabetes type is correctly recorded on the NDSS database. 

AHA’s team undertook statistical modelling to determine an appropriately weighted stratified random sample of registrants to contact.  We then designed a questionnaire (for demographic details) and a number of decision trees (for diabetes status and type) to capture all information required to complete the audit, in consultation with an expert reference group from Diabetes Australia.  AHA contacted over 2,000 registrants via telephone to complete this short survey, the results of which were recorded using a purpose designed suite of data collection and analysis software.  AHA’s friendly and efficient telephone team, combined with our well designed and targeted survey achieved a response rate of 46.5%, allowing AHA to provide Diabetes Australia with a precise and statistically valid picture of its NDSS data accuracy.