National Health Performance Authority, Hospital Performance: Cost per National Weighted Activity Unit (NWAU), 2016

Collection and usage attributes

Sum of in-scope costs divided by total NWAU for acute admitted patients who were admitted and discharged within the same financial year.

All computation of NWAU is done in accordance with the IHPA's National Efficient Price Determination 2015-16.  For more information on these computation methods see:  https://www.ihpa.gov.au/publications/national-pricing-model-technical-specifications-2015-16

Inclusion criteria:

• Care type (/content/index.phtml/itemId/270174):

  • 1.0 (Acute care)

  • 7.0 (Newborn care)
     

• Funding source (/content/index.phtml/itemId/472033):

  • 01 (Health service budget, not covered elsewhere)

  • 02 (Health service budget, due to eligibility for Reciprocal Health Care Agreement)

  • 08 Other hospital or public authority (contracted care)

  • 09 (private health insurance)

  • 13 (Self-funded)

Exclusion criteria:

• Error Australian Refined-Diagnosis Related Group (AR-DRG)

• Admitted and discharged in different financial years (eg. Work-in-Progress)

• Patient records where there is no match between the National Hospitals Data Cost Collection and the Admitted Patient Care National Minimum Data Set

In-scope costs ÷ Total NWAU

In-scope costs are a subset of the total costs for acute admitted patients. Costs are included if they are comparable or if they cannot be separated from other costs.  Costs are considered comparable if there is consistency of cost information provided by each of the states and territories. 
 

In-scope costs include the direct and overhead costs associated with the following cost buckets:

• Allied health

• Critical care

• Hotel goods and services

• Imaging

• Non clinical

• On-costs

• Operating room

• Pharmacy

• Pathology

• Prostheses

• Special procedures suites

• Ward supplies

• Ward medical

• Ward nursing

Note: costs for non-qualified new born(s) are allocated to mothers

Indicator: National Health Performance Authority, Hospital Performance: Total National Weighted Activity Unit, 2016

Total National Weighted Activity Units (NWAU), developed by the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA), measures total hospital activity using a common unit of activity, termed NWAU.

For the specification of this indicator see;

/content/index.phtml/itemId/635556

Hospital

Peer Group

Cost per NWAU, developed by the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA), measures the costs incurred against a common unit of activity termed NWAU. The NWAU is the unit for counting activity used in the nationally consistent Activity Based Funding system introduced under the National Health Reform Agreement 2011 (NHRA).

The 'average' hospital service is funded by one NWAU. More intensive and expensive activities are funded by multiples of NWAUs, and simpler and less expensive activities are funded by fractions of an NWAU.

This indicator compares the Cost per NWAU for acute admitted patients and does not include ED costs associated with each patient’s admission. The Cost per NWAU measure includes patients whose services were eligible for Activity Based Funding from the Commonwealth.

Representational attributes

Presented values are rounded to the nearest $100

Indicator conceptual framework

Accountability attributes

National Health Performance Authority - Performance and Accountability Framework

Independent Hospital Pricing Authority

Source and reference attributes

Hospital Performance

Relational attributes