Elective surgery waiting times NMDS 2018-19

Identifying and definitional attributes

• Health, Superseded 12/12/2018

The scope of this national minimum data set (NMDS) is patients on, or removed from, elective surgery waiting lists, as defined in the Elective care waiting list episode—elective care type, code N data element (also known as 'waiting list category'), which are managed by public acute hospitals and/or state and territory health authorities. For those patients admitted to hospital, neither the patient's election status nor the hospital type where the patient is admitted, is material.

From 2016–17 onwards, this NMDS amalgamates the previously separate Elective surgery waiting times (census data) NMDS and Elective surgery waiting times (removals data) NMDS.

Data are collected for patients on elective surgery waiting lists who are yet to be admitted to hospital and for patients who have been removed from an elective surgery waiting list (for admission or another reason).

Patients are included regardless of their readiness for care, as defined in the Elective surgery waiting list episode—patient listing status, readiness for surgery code N data element.

Hospitals may also collect information for other care (as defined in the 'waiting list category' data element), but this is not part of the NMDS.

Patients on, or removed from, elective surgery waiting lists managed by hospitals operated by the Australian Defence Force, corrections authorities and Australia's external territories are not included.

Collection and usage attributes

1. Patients on waiting lists on census dates.

2. Patients removed from waiting lists (for admission or other reason) during each financial year.

Elective care waiting list episode—category reassignment date, DDMMYYYY is not required for reporting to the NMDS, but is necessary for the derivation of both Elective surgery waiting list episode—waiting time (at a census date), total days N[NNN] and Elective surgery waiting list episode—waiting time (at removal), total days N[NNN].

Elective care waiting list episode—elective care type, code N is not required for reporting to the NMDS, but is necessary for determining whether patients are in scope for the NMDS. These data elements should be collected at the local level and reported to state and territory health authorities as required.

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 (all data are nationally collated on an annual basis):

1. Census data - Census dates are 30 September, 31 December, 31 March and 30 June.
2. Removals data - Financial years ending 30 June.

There are two different types of data collected for this NMDS (census data and removals data) and the scope and list of data elements associated with each is different.

For the purposes of this NMDS, public hospitals include hospitals which are set up to provide services for public patients (as public hospitals do), but which are managed privately.

The inclusion of public patients removed from elective surgery waiting lists managed by private hospitals will be investigated in the future.

Glossary items:

Glossary terms that are relevant to this NMDS are included here:

Clinical review

Elective surgery

Emergency surgery

Other surgery

Source and reference attributes

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Relational attributes