Emergency department stay.

The definition of a Short Stay Unit is as per clause C48 of the National Health Reform Agreement—National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services (NPA IPHS), as follows:

a) Designated and designed for the short term treatment, observation, assessment and reassessment of patients initially triaged and assessed in the emergency department (ED);

b) Have specific admission and discharge criteria and policies;

c) Designed for short term stays no longer than 24 hours;

d) Physically separated from the ED acute assessment area;

e) Have a static number of beds with oxygen, suction, patient ablution facilities; and

f) Not a temporary ED overflow area nor used to keep patients solely awaiting an inpatient bed nor awaiting treatment in the ED.

National reporting arrangements

For the reference year 2011-12, data provided to the National non-admitted patient emergency department care database (NNAPEDCD) will be in accordance with the Non-admitted patient emergency department care national minimum data set (NMDS) 2011-2012, for data collected from 1 July 2011 to 31 December 2011, and in accordance with the Non-admitted patient emergency department care data set specification (DSS) 1 January 2012-30 June 2012, for data collected from 1 January 2012 to 30 June 2012.

State and territory health authorities provide the data to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for national collation, on a quarterly basis within one month of the end of a reporting period and an annual basis within three months of the reporting period.

The Institute and the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing will agree on a data quality and timeliness protocol. Once cleaned, a copy of the data and a record of the changes made will be forwarded by the Institute to the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing. A copy of the cleaned data for each jurisdiction should also be returned to that jurisdiction on request.

Periods for which data are collected and nationally collated

Quarterly; end of March and June. Extraction of data for each quarter should be based on the date of the end of the emergency department stay. For example, a presentation that commences at 11pm on 30 June and ends at 2am 1 July is not in scope for the April to June quarter.

Scope links with other metadata sets

Episodes of care for admitted patients are reported through the Admitted patient care NMDS.

National Health Reform Agreement—National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services

The scope for reporting against the National Emergency Access Target is all hospitals reporting to the Non-admitted patient emergency department care national minimum data set (NAPEDC NMDS) (Peer groups A, B and other) as at August 2011 (when the Agreement was signed). For the duration of the Agreement, hospitals that have not previously reported to the NAPEDC NMDS can come into scope, subject to agreement between the jurisdiction and the Commonwealth.