This data quality statement provides information relevant to interpretation of the National Public Hospital Establishments Database (NPHED) for 2011-12. Summary of key issues
• In 2011–12, the National Public Hospital Establishments Database (NPHED) included essentially all public hospitals. • Differences in accounting, counting and classification practices across jurisdictions and over time may affect the comparability of these data. There was variation between states and territories in the reporting of expenditure, depreciation, revenue, available beds, staffing categories and outpatient occasions of service. • The number of hospitals reported can be affected by administrative and/or reporting arrangements and is not necessarily a measure of the number of physical hospital buildings or campuses. • Comparability of bed numbers can be affected by the range and types of patients treated by a hospital (casemix), with, for example, different proportions of beds being available for special and more general purposes. • A small number of establishments in 2011–12 did not report any financial data, or reported incomplete financial data. • Recurrent expenditure reported to the NPHED is largely expenditure by hospitals, and may not necessarily include all expenditure on hospital services by each state or territory government. • The collection of data by staffing category is not consistent among states and territories. • The outsourcing of services with a large labour related component (such as food services and domestic services) can have a substantial impact on estimates of costs. • Data supply issues in Victoria resulted in significant under-reporting of non-admitted occasions of service in 2011–12 for Dental, Mental health, and Community health. Consequently, 2011–12 data for Victoria are not directly comparable with previous years. Description
The National Public Hospital Establishments Database (NPHED) is based on the National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) for Public hospital establishments. It holds establishment-level data for each public hospital in Australia, including public acute hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, drug and alcohol hospitals and dental hospitals in all states and territories. Hence, public hospitals not administered by the state and territory health authorities (hospitals operated by correctional authorities for example, and hospitals located in offshore territories) are not included. The collection does not include data for private hospitals. The purpose of the National Public Hospital Establishments Database is to collect information on the characteristics of public hospitals and summary information on non-admitted services provided by them. Information is included on hospital resources (beds, staff and specialised services), recurrent expenditure (including depreciation), non-appropriation revenue and services to non-admitted patients. The NPHED holds data from 1993–94 to 2011–12. |