This document was added or updated on 04/02/2008.

NSW HEALTH DEPARTMENT, ADMITTED PATIENT DATA COLLECTION

INTRODUCTION

1 The Admitted Patient Data Collection (APDC) formerly the Inpatient Statistics Collection) is administered by the NSW Health Department. It is a census of all admitted patient services provided by NSW Public and Private Hospitals.

2 The purpose of the collection is to plan health services, track indicators of health status, and provide statistical information to monitor the utilisation of NSW hospital services. The collection is also used to compile the NSW Cancer Registry.

3 Reporting to the Admitted Patient Data Collection (APDC) is a requirement under the Health Administration Act 1982 for public hospitals, and the Private Hospitals and Day Procedures Centres Act 1988 and section 44(1) Health Insurance Act 1973 for private hospitals.

4 The information collected includes patient demographics, source of referral to the service, referred to on separation, and clinical information (diagnoses, procedures, external causes, activities when injured, places of occurrence, and morphologies). For public sector sites the information also includes admitted patient events such as changes in ward, treating doctor, legal status, financial class and leave.

SCOPE

5 The APDC covers all admitted patient activity provided by Public Hospitals, Public Psychiatric Hospitals, Multi Purpose Services, Private Hospitals and Private Day Procedure Centres in NSW.

6 The collection excludes all services provided on a non-admitted patient basis by any of the establishments listed above, while those performed on an admitted patient basis are included in the collection.

7 Also excluded from the scope are:

• Hospital boarders (that is, people staying at the hospital who are accompanying patients, such as parents of young children)
• Still births
• Posthumous organ procurement
• Community residential clients
• Residential Aged Care clients in beds funded directly by the Australian Government.

8 The Admitted Patient Data Collection includes data on hospital separations for NSW residents admitted to interstate hospitals. Figures in this report are based on separations of NSW residents only, within NSW or interstate hospitals.

REFERENCE PERIOD

9 The APDC is an annual collection. Public hospital data is reported weekly, while Private hospital data is reported monthly. The latest publishable release is for the 2005-06 financial year.

KEY DATA ITEMS

10 Clinical information is coded according to the International Classification of Diseases, using the 10th revision Australian modification (ICD-10-AM).

11 For each separation (i.e. discharge, death or transfer), the principal cause of hospitalisation is allocated to a diagnosis group. Records where an external cause (for instance, injury, transport accident, poisoning) is present are allocated to the external cause category. All other separations are allocated to diagnosis code based on the principle diagnosis. Definitions of the diagnosis codes can be obtained from the Report of the NSW Chief Health Officer (see Published data below).

12 The data presented in this product are the proportions of all separations within each diagnosis groups, as well as the number of separations and directly standardised rates, for each diagnosis group and total separations, based on the 2005-06 financial year, for each health area of residence and for NSW as a whole.

GEOGRAPHY

13 Data are available by the usual residence of patients or hospital where the service is provided in NSW, by Area Health Service or Statistical Local Area (SLA).

14 In this product the data are aggregated to the NSW Department of Health’s health areas of residence.

COLLECTION METHODOLOGY

15 The information contained in the collection is provided by the patient, the health service provider and hospital administration units.

16 APDC data are for episodes of care in hospital. Episodes of care end with the discharge, transfer, or death of a patient. A new episode of care may also start when the service category for an admitted patient is altered as a result of a change in the on-going clinical care requirements for that patient during the one period of hospitalisation in a single facility. A person may have more than one period of hospitalisation for given cause in a year, and one period of hospitalisation may involve a number of hospital separations.

17 The populations used in the calculation of rates were the ABS mid-financial-year estimated resident populations.

ACCURACY

18 Prior to 1 July 1993, APDC estimates were derived from a sample of all inpatient separations. Since 1 July 1993, the collection became a census of every service provided on an admitted patient, thus eliminating sampling error.

19 However, non-sampling errors can occur. Non sampling errors include:

• item non-response
• transcription errors
• coding errors
• clerical and editing errors
• data conversion errors

Data quality checks are applied to reduce these errors, which are detailed on the NSW Department of Health web site (see Related web sites).

20 A range of data quality checks identify records with missing and inconsistently reported data when the data is being loaded by the NSW Health Department.

21 Since the mid 1990s, clinical coding software has been utilised by NSW Health hospitals to assist with clinical coding and improve accuracy. Efforts have also been made to ensure that data is consistent at the hospital, Area Health Service, State and National level. Input edit checks are used to ensure data is correct at the time of first entry.

22 There are predetermined due dates for the reporting of all APDC records. In instances where a care facility does not meet the reporting deadline, a system of fines on a per record basis is applied.

COLLECTION HISTORY

23 On 1 July, 2004 the collection previously known as the 'Inpatient Statistics Collection' was renamed the 'Admitted Patient Data Collection'. The collection has been managed by the NSW Health Department since 1981. Prior to that, the Australian Bureau of Statistics collected data on hospital admitted patient activity.

PUBLISHED DATA

24 The main source of published data is the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Australia Hospital Statistics 2005–06.

25 Data are also published in the NSW Chief Health Officers Report which can be found at www.health.nsw.gov.au/public-health/chorep/.

RELATED WEBSITES

26 The NSW Health Department web site can be found at www.health.nsw.gov.au.

27 The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare web site can be found at www.aihw.gov.au.