Data Collections

About Casemix Data Collections

The Department of Health and Ageing manages a number of hospital related data collections. These contain information about hospital activity in the public and private systems.

National Admitted Patient Care Dataset

• Established: 1991-92.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: March (preliminary data) and July (State of Our Public Hospitals Report).
• Scope: All admitted patients in public and private hospitals.
• Coverage: 100%.
• Source: State/Territory health authorities under the Australian Health Care Agreements.
• Description: Contains de-identified patient level hospital separation information including patient demographics, hospital episode and clinical information (ICD-10-AM).

Elective Surgery Waiting Times Additions and Removals

• Established: 2003-04.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: March (preliminary data) and July (State of Our Public Hospitals Report).
• Scope: All admitted patients in public and private hospitals.
• Coverage: 100%.
• Source: State/Territory health authorities under the Australian Health Care Agreements.
• Description: Contains de-identified information on patients waiting for elective surgery and patients removed from the waiting list.

Elective Surgery Waiting Times Census

• Established: 2003-04.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: March (preliminary data) and July (State of Our Public Hospitals Report).
• Scope: All patients on elective surgery waiting lists on a census date who are 'ready for care'. Census dates are 30 September, 31 December, 31 March and 30 June.
• Coverage: 100%.
• Source: State/Territory health authorities under the Australian Health Care Agreements.
• Description: Contains de-identified information on patients on elective surgery waiting lists who are yet to be admitted to hospital or removed for another reason.

Non-admitted Patient Emergency Care

• Established: 2003-04.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: March (preliminary data) and July (State of Our Public Hospitals Report).
• Scope: Non-admitted patients registered for care in emergency departments in selected public hospitals that are classified as either Peer Group A or B in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's Australian Hospital Statistics publication from the preceding financial year.
• Coverage: 100%.
• Source: State/Territory health authorities under the Australian Health Care Agreements.
• Description: Contains de-identified information on patients presenting to Emergency Departments. The information includes patient demographics, arrival and departure status, triage category and waiting time information.

Outpatient Care Dataset

• Established: 2005-06.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: March (preliminary data) and July (State of Our Public Hospitals Report).
• Scope: All public hospitals.
• Coverage: 100%.
• Source: State/Territory health authorities under the Australian Health Care Agreements.
• Description: Contains outpatient care information for each financial year including outpatient clinic types, total number of group sessions, and total number of occasions of service.

Public Hospital Establishment Collection

• Established: 2003-04.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: March (preliminary data) and July (State of Our Public Hospitals Report).
• Scope: All public and private hospitals.
• Coverage: 100%.
• Source: State/Territory health authorities under the Australian Health Care Agreements.
• Description: Contains public hospital information including expenditure, revenue, staffing, beds and services provided.

National Hospital Cost Data Collection (NHCDC)

• Established: 1996-97.
• Collected: By financial year.
• Reported: Annually.
• Scope: Public, private and same day hospitals.
• Coverage: 90% of all public hospital separations in 2009-10: 71% of all private hospital separations in 2008-09: 41% of all day hospital facilities separations in 2008-09.

Year	Public Separations	Private Separations	Sameday Separations
2009-10	90%	-	-
2008-09	91%	71%	41%
2007-08	89%	72%	46%
2006-07	89%	59%	-
2005-06	91%	-	-
2004-05	87%	-	-
2003-04	88%	-	-
2002-03	79%	65%	-
2001-02	77%	51%	-
2000-01	77%	43%	-
1999-00	75%	43%	-
1998-99	75%	25%	-
1997-98	66%	32%	-
1996-97	50%	15%	-

• Source: Jurisdictional coordinators for participating public hospitals and direct from participating private hospitals on a voluntary basis.
• Description: Contains component costs per DRG based on patient-costed and cost-modelled information. (Enables DRG Cost Weights and average costs for DRGs for acute in-patients to be produced).

The Hospital Casemix Protocol (HCP) data collection

• Established: 1995.
• Collected: Monthly.
• Reported: Annually. The 2003-04 data was released in October 2005.
• Scope: All health funds.
• Coverage: 92% of all separations for 2003-04.

Year	Benefits	Separations
2004-05	99%	86%
2003-04	101%	90%
2002-03	94%	85%
2001-02	95%	82%
2000-01	82%	79%
1999-00	78%	76%
1998-99	81%	80%
1997-98	87%	86%

• Source: Health funds, as required by legislation.
• Description: Contains de-identified information on insured patients’ hospital separations, including information on patient demographics, clinical information (ICD-10-AM), hospital charges, medical information, medical charges, prosthetic items, prosthetic charges, health fund benefits and consumer out of pocket expenses.

Private Hospital Data Bureau (PHDB)

• Established: 1997-98.
• Collected: Monthly.
• Reported: Annually. The 2003-04 data was made available in January 2005.
• Scope: Private hospitals and day facilities.
• Coverage: The completeness of the dataset has improved each year. Currently (2003-04) the collection holds approximately 86% of private hospital admissions and 74% of day surgery separations.

Year	Private Hospital Episodes	Day Surgery Episodes
2004-05	96%	79%
2003-04	95%	81%
2002-03	96%	78%
2001-02	67%	64%
2000-01	56%	57%
1999-00	41%	53%
1998-99	57%	47%
1997-98	39%	19%

• Source: Private hospitals and day facilities, as required by legislation.
• Description: Contains de-identified information on private hospital separations, including patient demographics, hospital episode, clinical information (ICD-10-AM) and hospital charges for all patients in private hospitals.