• Indigenous, Standard 07/12/2017

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health-care services provide care, including but not limited to, for sickness and injury, as well as counselling, health education and screening.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health-care services episodes of care cluster describes the number of episodes of health-care provided by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health-care services that received funding from the Australian Government through the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (OATSIH).

The three data elements are used together to provide a count of episodes of care by the Indigenous status and sex of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services clients.

Episodes of health care

Includes:

• health care provided through all sources of funding (e.g. OATSIH, State government etc.)
• transport only if it involves direct provision of health care/information by service staff
• outreach (e.g. episodes at outstation visits, park clinics, satellite clinics etc.)
• episodes of health care delivered over the phone
• episodes of care provided to visitors/transients.

Excludes:

• residential care
• administration contacts with clients (e.g. receptionist making appointments for clients)
• groups (e.g. antenatal classes, men's groups etc.)
• family/relationship counselling if people don't have their own file/record.

If figures are not available for the full year, an estimate can be made based on a representative part of the year.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander primary health-care service is required to provide counts of male, female and total episodes of health care by Indigenous status, as detailed in the Scope, Episodes of health care table. The total episodes of health care may include episodes for which Indigenous status or sex was not known or not reported.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare