Department
Health Registries Data Collection
The Department for Health Registries Data Collection receives and confirms the quality of the notifications from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway, the Registry of Pregnancy Termination and the Cause of Death Registry.
The Medical Birth Registry and the Cause of Death Registry are nationwide mandatory health registries, based on Section 11 of the Health Registry Act.
The Medical Birth Registry contains all births in Norway from and including 1 January 1967. The registry does not require consent from people registered. The department also collects artificial reproductive technology (ART) notifications. The content of the registry is regulated in Regulations on the collection and processing of health information in the Medical Birth Registry § 1-8 (Special section on artificial reproductive technology).
The Registry of Pregnancy Termination contains administrative and medical information about the woman and the pregnancy, and about the procedure. The registry is not directly personally identifiable; neither the woman's name, address nor social security number is registered. The registry is permitted in the Registry of Pregnancy Termination Regulations.
The Cause of Death Registry includes individuals who are in Norway at the time of death as well as people living in Norway who die abroad. The department collects and processes health information in accordance with § 1-6 of the Causes of Death Regulations to the extent that is necessary to fulfil the purpose of the registry.
The department accepts both paper notifications and electronic notifications. The notifications from the Medical Birth Registry (MFR), the Registry of Pregnancy Termination and the Cause of Death Registry (DÅR) are registered, coded and quality assured.
There is a close collaboration with the Department for Health Registries (HDFA), the Department for Health Registry Research and Development (HDFU) and the Department for IT systems Bergen.
The main responsibility of the department is to:
- Receipt of individual notifications, both electronically and on paper
- Registration of received notifications
- Codes/classify diagnoses according to classifications such as ICD and SNOMED CT
- Quality assurance of data internally as well as against other health registries
- Close collaboration with senior physician at HDFU for quality assurance of register data
- Follow-up of missing notifications to ensure a high degree of coverage
- Further development of registry operations
- Digitisation of receipt of data
- Collaboration with users, suppliers and researchers to ensure correct data
- Implementation of new standards
