Seq No. Metadata item Obligation Max occurs - Elective surgery waiting times cluster Conditional obligation:
This data element cluster is to be reported for patients on waiting lists for elective surgery, which are managed by public acute hospitals and have a category 1 or 2 assigned for the reason for removal from the elective surgery waiting list.Conditional 99 - Address—Australian postcode, Australian postcode code (Postcode datafile) {NNNN} DSS specific information:
To be reported for the address of the patient.Mandatory 1 - Contracted hospital care—organisation identifier, NNX[X]NNNNN Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care (newborn)—number of qualified days, total N[NNNN] Conditional obligation:
Only required to be reported for episodes of care for patients with a care type of newborn care.
Conditional 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—admission date, DDMMYYYY DSS specific information:
Right justified and zero filled.
admission date ≤ separation date
admission date ≥ date of birth
Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—admission mode, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—admission urgency status, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—condition onset flag, code N Mandatory 99 - Episode of admitted patient care—duration of continuous ventilatory support, total hours NNNN Conditional obligation:
This data element is only required to be reported for episodes of care where the admitted patient spent time on continuous ventilatory support.Conditional 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—intended length of hospital stay, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—length of stay in intensive care unit, total hours NNNN Conditional obligation:
The data element is only required to be reported for episodes of care where the admitted patient spent time in an intensive care unit.Conditional 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—number of days of hospital-in-the-home care, total {N[NN]} Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—number of leave days, total N[NN] DSS specific information:
For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies:
(Episode of admitted patient care—separation date, DDMMYYYY minus Episode of admitted patient care—admission date, DDMMYYYY ) minus Admitted patient hospital stay—number of leave days, total N[NN] must be ≥ 0 days.
Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—patient election status, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—procedure, code (ACHI 9th edn) NNNNN-NN DSS specific information:
As a minimum requirement procedure codes must be valid codes from the Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI) procedure codes and validated against the nationally agreed age and sex edits. More extensive edit checking of codes may be utilised within individual hospitals and state and territory information systems.
An unlimited number of diagnosis and procedure codes should be able to be collected in hospital morbidity systems. Where this is not possible, a minimum of 20 codes should be able to be collected.
Record all procedures undertaken during an episode of care in accordance with the ACHI (9th edition) Australian Coding Standards.
The order of codes should be determined using the following hierarchy:
procedure performed for treatment of the principal diagnosis
procedure performed for the treatment of an additional diagnosis
diagnostic/exploratory procedure related to the principal diagnosis
diagnostic/exploratory procedure related to an additional diagnosis for the episode of care. Mandatory 99 - Episode of admitted patient care—referral source, public psychiatric hospital code NN Conditional obligation:
The data element is only required to be reported for episodes of care where the admitted patient spent time in a public psychiatric hospital.Conditional 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—separation date, DDMMYYYY DSS specific information:
For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies this field must:
be ≤ last day of financial year
be ≥ first day of financial year
be ≥ Admission date Mandatory 1 - Episode of admitted patient care—separation mode, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of care—additional diagnosis, code (ICD-10-AM 9th edn) ANN{.N[N]} Conditional obligation:
This data element is only to be reported if the episode of care results in more than one diagnosis code being allocated.DSS specific information:
An unlimited number of diagnosis and procedure codes should be able to be collected in hospital morbidity systems. Where this is not possible, a minimum of 20 codes should be able to be collected.Conditional 99 - Episode of care—inter-hospital contracted patient status, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of care—mental health legal status, code N Mandatory 1 - Episode of care—number of psychiatric care days, total N[NNNN] DSS specific information:
Total days in psychiatric care must be: ≥ zero; and ≤ length of stay.Mandatory 1 - Episode of care—principal diagnosis, code (ICD-10-AM 9th edn) ANN{.N[N]} Conditional obligation:
The principal diagnosis is a major determinant in the classification of Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups and Major Diagnostic Categories.
Where the principal diagnosis is recorded prior to discharge (as in the annual census of public psychiatric hospital patients), it is the current provisional principal diagnosis. Only use the admission diagnosis when no other diagnostic information is available. The current provisional diagnosis may be the same as the admission diagnosis.
Mandatory 1 - Episode of care—source of funding, patient funding source code NN Mandatory 1 - Establishment—Australian state/territory identifier, code N DSS specific information:
This data element applies to the location of the establishment and not to the patient's area of usual residence.Mandatory 1 - Establishment—geographic remoteness, admitted patient care remoteness classification (ASGS-RA) N Mandatory 1 - Establishment—organisation identifier (state/territory), NNNNN Mandatory 1 - Establishment—region identifier, X[X] Mandatory 1 - Establishment—sector, code N Mandatory 1 - Hospital service—care type, code N[N] Mandatory 1 - Injury event—activity type, code (ICD-10-AM 9th edn) ANN{.N[N]} DSS specific information:
As a minimum requirement, the external cause codes must be listed in the ICD-10-AM classification.Mandatory 99 - Injury event—external cause, code (ICD-10-AM 9th edn) ANN{.N[N]} DSS specific information:
As a minimum requirement, the external cause codes must be listed in the ICD-10-AM classification.Mandatory 99 - Injury event—place of occurrence, code (ICD-10-AM 9th edn) ANN{.N[N]} DSS specific information:
To be used with ICD-10-AM external cause codes.Mandatory 99 - Patient—hospital insurance status, code N Mandatory 1 - Person—area of usual residence, statistical area level 2 (SA2) code (ASGS 2011) N(9) Mandatory 1 - Person—country of birth, code (SACC 2011) NNNN Mandatory 1 - Person—date of birth, DDMMYYYY DSS specific information:
This field must not be null.
National minimum data sets:
For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies this field must:
be less than or equal to 'Admission date', 'Date patient presents' or 'Service contact date'
be consistent with diagnoses and procedure codes, for records to be grouped. Mandatory 1 - Person—eligibility status, Medicare code N Mandatory 1 - Person—Indigenous status, code N Mandatory 1 - Person—person identifier, XXXXXX[X(14)] Mandatory 1 - Person—sex, code N Mandatory 1 - Person—weight (measured), total grams NNNN Conditional obligation:
Weight on the date the infant is admitted should be recorded if the weight is less than or equal to 9,000 grams and age is less than 365 days.DSS specific information:
For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies this metadata item must be consistent with diagnoses and procedure codes for valid grouping.Conditional 1 - Record—identifier, X[X(79)] DSS specific information:
In the context of the Admitted patient care NMDS, the Record identifier data element exists to aid with data processing. This data element is generated for inclusion in data submissions to facilitate referencing of specific records in discussions between the receiving agency and the reporting body. It is to be used solely for this purpose.
When stipulated in a data specification, each record in a data submission will be assigned a unique numeric or alphanumeric record identifier to permit easy referencing of individual records in discussions between the receiving agency and the reporting body. The unique record identifier assigned by the reporting body should be generated in a fashion that allows the associated data record to be traced to its original form in the reporting body's source database.
Reporting jurisdictions may use their own alphabetic, numeric or alphanumeric coding system.
This field cannot be left blank.
Mandatory 1 
