Local Hospital Networks data element cluster

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Health, Superseded 25/01/2018

The scope of the Local Hospital Networks (LHN) data element cluster is all activity, recurrent expenditure and related revenue in the LHN General Ledger, regardless of whether all components are a 'public hospital service' under the National Health Reform Agreement (2011).

Excluded from the scope are data reported to the Public hospital establishments and the State or territory health authority data element clusters.

Local Hospital Networks are defined as those entities recognised as such by the relevant state or territory health authority.

Collection and usage attributes

Local Hospital Network.

For the purposes of this data element cluster, the term 'establishment' refers to Local Hospital Networks.

The following are principles of the collection. States and territories should consider these principles when providing data.

1. Data should be reported by states and territories at the level relevant to service management and/or provision.
2. This data element cluster should capture and differentiate between in-scope and out-of-scope of the National Health Reform Agreement.
3. This data element cluster must specify where data elements are reporting actual data and where they are reporting estimated data.
4. Where possible, this data element cluster should align so that it acts as a subset of the Government health expenditure NMDS.
5. Reporting on expenditure and activity delivered under contract requires less detail than other expenditure and activity.

Actual recurrent expenditure and related revenue data are expected to be reported at the level at which they appear in the general ledger. Expenditure and revenue data are not expected to be apportioned to a lower level.

Recurrent expenditure and related revenue data reported to the LHN data element cluster should reconcile with published financial statements.

Expenditure data are reported in two ways:

• as it would appear in the general ledger line items (Establishment—recurrent non-salary expenditure, public hospital expenditure categories code N[N] and Establishment—staffing categories, health code N[N])
• by National Health Reform Agreement product streams Establishment—total recurrent expenditure, National Health Reform Agreement 2011 product streams code N[N]. These are estimated data.

The total recurrent expenditure by product stream should equal the total recurrent expenditure by general ledger line item.

For the purposes of the LHN data element cluster, funding from the Commonwealth, state and territory health authorities and other state and territory government departments is considered to be revenue and should be reported as such.

Some data for this data element cluster are sourced from the state or territory health authority general ledger. Some other data are maintained by the LHN and are forwarded to the relevant state or territory health authority for inclusion.

National reporting arrangements

State and territory health authorities provide the data to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for national collation, on an annual basis.

Periods for which data are collected and nationally collated

Financial years ending 30 June each year.

Interaction with the Public hospital establishments and State or territory health authority data element clusters

The Public hospital establishments (PHE), LHN and State or territory health authority data element clusters work together to collect data on the public hospital system. The three data element clusters collect the same types of recurrent expenditure and related revenue data items, but at different levels of the system:

It is expected that recurrent expenditure and related revenue data will be reported at the level at which they occur.

Scope links with Health NMDSs

The State or territory health authority data element cluster shares scope with the Government health expenditure NMDS.

Source and reference attributes

Relational attributes