For occasions of service to non-admitted patients provided by designated community health units within the establishment.

Community health units include:

• baby clinics
• immunisation units
• aged care assessment teams
• other

This metadata item identifies types of services provided to non-admitted patients in different institutional ways in different systems. It is not a summary casemix classification.

A patient who first contacts the hospital and receives non-admitted care, for example through emergency departments, and is subsequently admitted, should have both components of care enumerated separately. Where possible, non-admitted occasions of service that are provided to patients who are subsequently admitted should be identified as a subset of the total occasions of service.

The list of Type of non-admitted patient care categories was to be developed using typical functional units or cost centres within existing institutions. These would include designated wards or departments and specialised clinics. Although the current statistical/financial returns submitted to the various health authorities by their hospitals do not provide a minimum subset, an effort has been made to define the categories in respect to those areas commonly collected. Many functional units provide services to both admitted patients and non-admitted patients, for example pathology. Only occasions of service for non-admitted patients should be included in this section.

The definition does not distinguish case complexity for non-admitted patients.

For example, an occasion of service could vary in complexity from a simple urine glucose test to a complete biochemical analysis of all body fluids. Ideally, average case complexity values would be available for the various categories of non-admitted patients in the same way that average diagnosis related group weighted separations are becoming available for acute admitted patients. However, such measures would require the development of patient record databases for non-admitted patients. This does not imply an inadequacy in definition.

For admitted patients the concept of a separation is widely accepted. Separations can vary between admission for overnight observation to open heart surgery. The issue of case complexity for both admitted and non-admitted patients is a separate issue and beyond the scope of the proposed summary establishment-level activity data.

Outreach/community care is care delivered by hospital employees to the patient in the home, place of work or other non-hospital site. The distinction between non-admitted patient care and outreach care is that for non-admitted patient care the patients travel to the health care providers while for outreach care the health care providers travel to the patients.

This distinction creates difficulties for community health centres. These centres are to be included in the national minimum data set where they are funded as sections within establishments that fall within the scope of the National Health Data Dictionary. For example, baby clinics, immunisation groups or aged care assessment teams, which are funded through acute hospitals, may provide care to some clients within the hospital grounds or externally. It is intended that all community health activity be measured under community health regardless of where the services are provided.