Episode of admitted patient care—length of stay in intensive care unit, total hours NNNN

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Health, Superseded 05/02/2021
• Independent Hospital Pricing Authority, Standard 31/10/2012
• Tasmanian Health, Standard 10/01/2018

Value domain attributes

Representational attributes

Collection and usage attributes

Data element attributes

Collection and usage attributes

The total number of hours is to be reported by public hospitals that have either an approved level 3 adult intensive care unit or an approved paediatric intensive care unit.

Adult intensive care unit, level 3

The unit must be capable of providing complex, multisystem life support for an indefinite period; be a tertiary referral centre for patients in need of intensive care services and have extensive backup laboratory and clinical service facilities to support the tertiary referral role. It must be capable of providing mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal renal support services and invasive cardiovascular monitoring for an indefinite period; or care of a similar nature.

Paediatric intensive care unit

The unit must be capable of providing complex, multisystem life support for an indefinite period; be a tertiary referral centre for children needing intensive care; and have extensive backup laboratory and clinical service facilities to support this tertiary role. It must be capable of providing mechanical ventilation, extracorporeal renal support services and invasive cardiovascular monitoring for an indefinite period to infants and children less than 16 years of age; or care of a similar nature.

For the purposes of calculating the length of stay in an intensive care unit, begin the calculation with the following:

• Arrival of the patient in the intensive care unit.

End the calculation with one of the following:

• Discharge, death or transfer of a patient from the intensive care unit; or
• Change of episode type.

Where an episode of admitted patient care involves more than one period spent in an intensive care unit, the total number of hours is to be reported for all periods during the episode of care.

The time spent in an operating theatre or in a coronary care unit is not counted.

Where there is a contracted service episode, Hospital A will report the total duration spent in the intensive care unit of Hospital B in addition to any length of time spent in Hospital A. Hospital B will only report the total time spent in the intensive care unit in Hospital B.

The total duration of hours reported should be rounded to the nearest hour. For example, if the total length of stay in the intensive care unit was 98 hours 45 minutes, report 99 hours.

If the duration of length of stay in an intensive care unit is equal to or greater than 9999 hours, report 9999 hours.

Source and reference attributes

Independent Hospital Pricing Authority

Relational attributes