• WA Health, Standard 19/03/2015

An occasion of service is any examination, consultation, treatment or other service provided to a patient, or a group of patients, in a functional unit of a health service or hospital on each occasion that such a service is provided.

A service does not have to be provided in person. As long as the criteria for a valid occasion of service are met, a telephone conversation or telehealth service that is conducted as a substitute for face-to-face contact with the patient should be recorded as an occasion of service.

The location of the provider and patient is not relevant.

An Occasion of Service must satisfy the following criteria:

• One or more health care providers (e.g. can be one health care provider or multiple health care providers, providing care to a patient at the same time)
• One or more non-admitted patients
• An examination, consultation, treatment or other service provided to a patient.

Previously, Occasion of Service was the counting unit used to report to the Outpatient Care NMDS 2007-13

using the data element Establishment-number of occasions of service, total N[NNNNNN]

This is in contrast to the Non-admitted patient service event, which has become the counting unit in all national reporting of non-admitted patients since the inception of the Non-admitted patient DSS 2013-14.

A non-admitted patient service event must satisfy the following criteria:

• One or more health care providers
• One non-admitted patient (each patient receiving care is treated as an individual record regardless of whether they receive care as an individual or part of a group)
• Must contain clinical or therapeutic content
• Must result in a dated entry to the patient's medical record.

There are three Non-admitted patient care data set specifications for Activity Based Funding:

• Non-admitted patient data set specification (NAP DSS) - collects information for each non-admitted patient service event at each clinic of a health facility
• Non-admitted patient care local hospital network aggregate data set specification - collects the total service events per Tier 2 class for a local health network
• Non-admitted patient care aggregate National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) - collects the total service events per Tier 2 class of a facility.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2012. National Health Data Dictionary. Version 16 Cat. no. HWI 119. Canberra: AIHW.

Independent Hospital Pricing Authority 2013. Tier 2 Non-admitted services compendium 2014-2015. Canberra: IHPA.