An “Update and Standardization of Data Entry” workshop, for National Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance was held at the Institute for Medical Research on 24- 25^th September 2012. It was attended by 26 participants comprising of Clinical Pathologists and Scientific Officers (Microbiologist) from 16 major Ministry of Health, Malaysia hospitals (14 State hospitals 2 major referral hospitals).

The objective of the workshop was to standardize the laboratory configurations namely on the data field entry so the data captured can be analysed more uniformly and thus reflect a more accurate resistance pattern.

On the first day of the workshop, the participants were given a presentation on the National Surveillance of Antibiotic Resistance Data for the year 2011. After the presentation, the coordinator of WHONET Malaysia, Dr Norazah Ahmad brought up the issue of difficulty in analysis the data because of different data field entry especially on the part of location and department. The participants were also given a revision on Baclink and for the new officers in charge of the WHONET data entry, they were also given an introduction on how to use the Baclink program. The session on trouble shooting problems arising from converting data from the hospitals’s Laboratory Information System (LIS) was very well appreciated by the participants.

The trainer for this workshop was Mr Mohd Zainuldin Taib and the Secretariate were Mrs Azura Mohd Noor and Dr Rohaidah Hashim.