Identifying and definitional attributes | |
Metadata item type: | Data Quality Statement |
---|---|
METEOR identifier: | 448574 |
Registration status: | Health, Superseded 04/12/2012 |
Data quality | |
Data quality statement summary: |
|
---|---|
Institutional environment: | The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has calculated this indicator. The Institute is an independent statutory authority within the Health and Ageing portfolio, which is accountable to the Parliament of Australia through the Minister. For further information see the AIHW website. The data were supplied to the Institute by State and Territory health authorities. The State and Territory health authorities received these data from public and private hospitals. States and territories use these data for service planning, monitoring and internal and public reporting. Hospitals may be required to provide data to states and territories through a variety of administrative arrangements, contractual requirements or legislation. States and territories supplied these data under the terms of the National Health Information Agreement (see link). http://www.aihw.gov.au/committees/simc/final_nhia_signed.doc |
Timeliness: | The reference period for this performance indicator is 2008-09 |
Accessibility: | The AIHW provides a variety of products that draw upon the NHMD. Published products available on the AIHW website are:
Data are also included on the MyHospitals website. |
Interpretability: | Supporting information on the quality and use of the NHMD are published annually in Australian hospital statistics (technical appendixes), available in hard copy or on the AIHW website. Readers are advised to read caveat information to ensure appropriate interpretation of the performance indicator. Supporting information includes discussion of coverage, completeness of coding, the quality of Indigenous data, and changes in service delivery that might affect interpretation of the published data. Metadata information for the NMDS for Admitted patient care are published in the AIHW’s online metadata repository — METeOR, and the National health data dictionary. |
Relevance: | The purpose of the NMDS for Admitted patient care is to collect information about care provided to admitted patients in Australian hospitals. The scope of the NMDS is episodes of care for admitted patients in all public and private acute and psychiatric hospitals, free standing day hospital facilities and alcohol and drug treatment centres in Australia. Hospitals operated by the Australian Defence Force, corrections authorities and in Australia's off-shore territories are not included. Hospitals specialising in dental, ophthalmic aids and other specialised acute medical or surgical care are included. The hospital separations data do not include episodes of non-admitted patient care provided in outpatient clinics or emergency departments. Remoteness and socioeconomic status are based on the reported area of usual residence of the patient. The SEIFA categories for socioeconomic status represent approximately the same proportion of the national population, but do not necessarily represent that proportion of the population in each state or territory (each SEIFA decile or quintile represents 10 per cent and 20 per cent respectively of the national population). Separations are reported by jurisdiction of hospitalisation, regardless of the jurisdiction of usual residence. Hence, rates represent the number of separations for each remoteness area or SEIFA population group (regardless of the jurisdiction in which the patient resides) divided by the number of people in that remoteness or SEIFA population group in the jurisdiction of hospitalisation. This may be relevant if significant numbers of one jurisdiction’s residents are treated in another jurisdiction. |
Accuracy: | For 2008-09, almost all public hospitals provided data for the NHMD, with the exception of a mothercraft hospital in the ACT. The great majority of private hospitals also provided data, the exceptions being the private day hospital facilities in the ACT, the single private free-standing day hospital facility in the NT, and two private hospitals in Tasmania. States and territories are primarily responsible for the quality of the data they provide. However, the Institute undertakes extensive validations on receipt of data. Data are checked for valid values, logical consistency and historical consistency. Where possible, data in individual data sets are checked with data from other data sets. Potential errors are queried with jurisdictions, and corrections and resubmissions may be made in response to these edit queries. The AIHW does not adjust data to account for possible data errors or missing or incorrect values. Data on procedures are recorded uniformly using the Australian Classification of Health Interventions. Variations in admission practices and policies lead to variation among providers in the number of admissions for some conditions. The Indigenous status data are of sufficient quality for statistical reporting purposes for the following jurisdictions: NSW, Vic, Qld, SA, WA, NT (NT public hospitals only). National totals include these six jurisdictions only. Indigenous status data reported for Tasmania and ACT should be interpreted with caution until further assessment of Indigenous identification is completed. Cells have been suppressed to protect confidentiality (where the presentation could identify a patient or a single service provider) or where rates are likely to be highly volatile (for example, the denominator is very small). |
Coherence: | The information presented for this indicator is calculated using the same methodology as data published in Australian hospital statistics 2008-09 and the National healthcare agreement: baseline performance report 2008-09. The data can be meaningfully compared across reference periods for all jurisdictions except Tasmania. 2008–09 data for Tasmania does not include two private hospitals that were included in 2007–08 data reported in the baseline report. |
Relational attributes | |
Related metadata references: | Supersedes National Healthcare Agreement: P48-Rates of services: Hospital procedures, 2010 QS Health, Superseded 08/06/2011 Has been superseded by National Healthcare Agreement: PI 48-Rates of services: hospital procedures, 2012 QS Health, Retired 14/01/2015 |
Indicators linked to this Data Quality statement: | National Healthcare Agreement: PI 48-Rates of services: Hospital procedures, 2011 Health, Superseded 31/10/2011 |