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Certification Dashboard: Information for PHOs and Networks

The ACC Certification Dashboard gives you insight into the medical certificates your practices and practitioners have issued over the past two years. You can get a detailed view of your ‘fully unfit’ and ‘fit for selected work’ certifications and overall claim data, and filter this information based on work type, injury type, age band and ethnicity. You can also see a comparison of your data versus national and regional averages.

Read on to learn more about how to use the dashboard and interpret the individual measures.

 

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General information

Current version

CareSuite version 2.4.0

Known issues in this version

Medtech

  • The download report feature does not open in a new window, which prevents access to the report. To download your report, please use the built-in print functionality in the ALEX browser.

Using the ACC Certification Dashboard

This dashboard is designed to help you understand your use of medical incapacity certification for injured patients with ACC claims. 

This dashboard has been designed to help you understand your use of medical incapacity certification for injured patients with ACC claims. 

It shows certification patterns over the past two years, including ‘fully unfit’ and ‘fit for selected work’ certificates, as well as selected claim level information. 

You can use filters to explore results by:

  • work type
  • injury type
  • age band
  • ethnicity

You can also compare your certification practice and return to work outcomes with peers in your PHO, health network or national results. 

The dashboard is intended to support quality improvement, audit activity and conversations about how injured patients are supported back to work.

Learn more about how to use the dashboard and interpret the individual measures below.

Getting started

How to use the dashboard

The dashboard has four views: Summary, Charts, Tables and Performance Range. When you first open it, it defaults to the Summary view with no filters applied. This view compares your PHO or network with all PHOs and networks in the dataset. Start here for an overview, then move to the other views if you want more detail.

Summary view

In the Summary view you’ll see how your practice compares with all practitioners in your PHO or Practice network across three key measures:

  • The ratio of fully unfit medical certificates you issue (out of all med certs)
  • The average fully unfit incapacity time per claim
  • The average weekly compensation days paid per claim.

It also shows the highest, lowest and median results, and where you sit relative to all other PHOs in your comparator group.

Switching between views

Use the view button to switch between Summary, Charts, Tables and Performance Range.

Date ranges

In all views, the default date range is the latest 12 completed months of data. You can change this using the date range button to show the latest 12 months, 6 months or 3 months.

Downloading data

Use the Download button to save the current view as a PDF.

If you’re in Charts view, the PDF will include all charts for the selected date range and filters.

If you’re in Tables view, the PDF will include the table or tables for the selected date range and filters.

Using filters

Use the filter button to open the filter panel. The filter panel lets you refine results for specific patient groups.

The filters available depend on which view you’re using. After choosing your filters, select Apply to update the dashboard, Cancel to close the panel without saving changes, or Reset to return to the default settings. Any filters you apply will appear in the Selected Filters panel above the charts or tables.

Filters in the Summary view

Summary view filters: Date range, Location, Work type, Injury type, Age band and Ethnicity. Location defaults to National. You can select more than one option for Work type, Injury type and Age band. Ethnicity defaults to Total.

Filters in the Charts view

Charts view filters: Location, Work type, Injury type, Age band and Ethnicity. Location defaults to National. You can select more than one option for Work type, Injury type and Age band. Ethnicity defaults to Total.

Filters in the Tables view

Tables view filters: Location and View claims by. Location defaults to National. View claims by lets you group results by Work type, Injury type, Age band or Ethnicity.

Filters in the Performance Range view

Performance Range view filters: Work type, Injury type, Age band and Ethnicity. You can select more than one option for Work type, Injury type and Age band. Ethnicity defaults to Total.

About the data in this dashboard

This section explains what data is included in the dashboard, what has been excluded, and how to interpret the different cohort breakdowns.

The dashboard includes all earner and potential earner injury claims involving treatment provided by GPs or Nurse Practitioners working in practices in your PHO or network during the latest reporting period. This includes claims where ACC was invoiced for a consultation or treatment, or where a medical certificate was provided for a patient with an ACC injury claim, except for:

  • Serious injury claims – These include patients with tetraplegia or paraplegia, moderate or severe brain injury, incomplete spinal cord injury, or injuries of similar severity.
  • Long-term service claims – These are claims where a patient has been assessed as unlikely to achieve vocational independence before reaching the qualifying age for New Zealand Superannuation.

The default reporting period compares the most recent 12-month period with the same period in the previous year.

The data can be broken down to compare different patient groups:

  • Work type:
    • Light work (eg mix of standing/ walking or sitting and occasionally lifting up to 10kg),
    • medium work (eg standing / walking most of the day, frequent lifting 10-12kg but up to 25kg),
    • heavy work (eg construction / forestry – high intensity manual work frequently lifting over 25kg,)
    • very heavy work (eg very high intensity manual work (eg mining / logging)
    • where work type has not been stated
  • Injury type – Diagnoses are grouped into five categories: sprains and strains, fractures and dislocations, concussion, punctures/stings/lacerations, and all other diagnoses.
  • Age bands – 0 to 18, 19 to 35, 36 to 50, 51 to 65, and 65 plus. Age band is based on the patient’s age at the end of the latest reporting month.
  • Ethnicity – ACC uses total response ethnicity. This means a patient who identifies as Māori and Pacific will be counted in both groups. The default is Total, which includes all ethnicities.
  • Location – compares results by the Health New Zealand region where patients live, or by the PHO providing services in that area. National results can also be selected.

If medical certificates have overlapping dates the total duration used for analysis is based on the full continuous period covered. For example, if one certificate runs from 1 June 2026 to 14 June 2026 and another runs from 7 June 2026 to 21 June 2026, the total duration used for analysis is 1 June 2026 to 21 June 2026. When looking at the distribution of days per medical certificate, however, each certificate is counted separately according to its own duration.

Medical certification information is based only on claims where you issued a medical certificate.

Weekly compensation information is based on patients where you issued at least one medical certificate during the period they were receiving weekly compensation. The total weekly compensation days paid may include periods of incapacity certified by other practitioners on the same claim. Likewise, incapacity you certified may also be reflected in the reports of other providers where more than one practitioner has certified incapacity on the same claim.

This data may change over time because records such as weekly compensation, medical certificates and payments can be backdated. This means results for the same period may differ slightly from reports you downloaded earlier.

How the measures are calculated

Charts view

  • Patients reviewed – The number of patients your practitioners reviewed during the selected period.
  • Patients provided with a medical certificate – The number and proportion of reviewed patients who were issued a medical certificate.
  • Proportion of claims by certificate type – The proportion of reviewed patients who were issued ‘fit for selected work’, ‘fully unfit’ or mixed certificates.
  • Patients provided with a fully unfit medical certificate – The number and proportion of patients who were issued a fully unfit certificate.
  • Average fully unfit time per medical certificate – Total days on fully unfit certificates divided by the number of fully unfit certificates issued.
  • Total fully unfit incapacity time per claim – The distribution of fully unfit incapacity time across the whole claim, which may include more than one certificate.
  • Patients provided with a fit for selected work medical certificate – The proportion of reviewed patients who were issued fit for selected work certificates only, or a mix of fit for selected work and fully unfit certificates.
  • Average fit for selected work incapacity time per medical certificate – Total days certified fit for selected work divided by the number of certificates that included a fit for selected work period.
  • Fit for selected work incapacity time per medical certificate – The distribution of fit for selected work incapacity time for individual certificates.
  • Total fit for selected work incapacity time per claim – The distribution of fit for selected work incapacity time across the whole claim, which may include more than one certificate.
  • Average weekly compensation days per claim – The average number of weekly compensation days received by patients who have returned to work.
  • Total weekly compensation days per claim for patients no longer receiving weekly compensation – The distribution of weekly compensation days for patients who are no longer receiving weekly compensation.
  • Weekly compensation days per claim for patients still receiving weekly compensation – The distribution of weekly compensation days for patients who are still receiving weekly compensation.

Performance Range view

The Performance Range view shows a subset of the measures available in the Charts and Tables views for practices in your PHO or network.

Columns 1 and 2 show the number of patients in the selected cohort and the number of claims still receiving weekly compensation. You can sort columns 1 to 6 in ascending or descending order by selecting the column header. When interpreting this view, pay close attention to the number of patients seen during the reporting period.

Results based on very small numbers should be interpreted with caution. For example, if a practitioner issued only one medical certificate and it was fully unfit, their ratio would be 100%.

Switch between practices and practitioners using the Practice / Practitioner’s button.

You can also search for a specific Practice or Practitioner by typing their name into the Search box.

In the Practices view, clicking on the name of the practice brings up the individual results of the practitioners in that practice.