CODE 1   Yes

This code is used to indicate that direct care has been provided by multiple health care providers.

CODE 2   No

This code is used to indicate that direct care has not been provided by multiple health care providers.

CODE 9   Not stated/inadequately described

This code is used when there is insufficient information to determine whether direct care has been provided by multiple health care providers.

The definition of the term 'multiple health care provider' can vary depending on the context and/or collection in which the term is being applied. This information should be specified via the 'DSS-specific attributes' field in, relation to this data element at the National Best Endeavours Data Set (NBEDS) or National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) level.

For example, in the context of reporting non-admitted activity data for activity based funding, 'multiple health care provider' means three or more health care providers who deliver care either individually or jointly within a non-admitted patient service event. The health care providers may be of the same profession (medical, nursing or allied health). However, they must each have a different speciality so that the care provided by each provider is unique and meets the definition of a non-admitted patient service event.

In practice, this should be interpreted as meaning that the patient can separately identify the unique care provided by each healthcare provider. For example:

• A patient attends a pain management clinic for assessment. At the assessment there is a doctor specialising in chronic diseases, a doctor specialising in pain management, a nurse specialising in pain management and an occupational therapist. As each provider will provide unique clinical content to the assessment, this is counted as multiple health care providers.
• A patient attends a rehabilitation clinic and sees a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist and then a nurse, all individually. This would be counted as multiple health care providers.
• A patient attends a hydrotherapy clinic, sees a physiotherapist who provides a plan, and then completes the plan with a physiotherapist aid. This would not be counted as multiple health care providers.