Failed metabolic syndrome analysis is government’s latest data blunder

JIJI

Some 9 billion data sets related to screenings for metabolic syndrome collected by the health ministry have largely gone unanalyzed due to style and input inconsistencies and other issues preventing their use, the Board of Audit said Friday.

In addition, the ministry has for years failed to take action since recognizing the problems with the computer system used to analyze the effects of subsidies worth more than ¥100 billion ($840 million) to promote special checkups and medical consultation services focusing on metabolic syndrome, the board pointed out.

The system cost the government ¥2.8 billion to set up and run. The ministry will spend an additional ¥200 million to fix the system to tackle the problems.

“We will take the board’s finding sincerely and urgently take steps so that the personal information collected will be used appropriately,” a ministry official said.

The ministry introduced the special checkups and consultations program in fiscal 2008 in response to a surge in lifestyle-related diseases such as diabetes.

To promote the program, subsidies totaling ¥125.7 billion were distributed by the end of fiscal 2014.

The ministry planned to analyze the effects of the measures by checking the results of patients’ examinations and consultations against the treatments and drugs they received.

The ministry had collected 8.79 billion sets of information by the end of February from hospitals, and was aiming to conclude its analysis in fiscal 2018.

The information contains procedures and drugs prescribed to the patients for treatment of metabolic syndrome by medical institutions. The ministry also collected another 120 million sets of information on metabolic syndrome checkups and consultations from institutions that carried out exams.

The audit board found that just 25 percent of the checkup and consultation data collected on the subjects was matched against the medical treatment and drug data of the same patients in fiscal 2012. The matching rate was even lower — 19 percent — in the preceding year.

At most of the 1,400 corporate health insurance associations nationwide, the system could not match the two types of information collected. Corporate associations account for a large portion of the country’s 3,400 health insurance societies.

The failure to match the data occurred, in part, because the system used to conduct the analysis does not recognize data as belonging to the same person if that data is input using different styles, such as via kanji and katakana lettering, or characters sized differently.

The ministry noted the failure to provide appropriate style manuals for inputting data.

As the accumulated data is encrypted, it is almost impossible to rematch, sources said.

By February 2012, the ministry was aware that the matching rates were far lower than expected, but it did not check the system, the board said.

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