The purpose of the National Outcomes and Casemix Collection (NOCC) national minimum data set (NMDS) is to collect data on the mental health-related treatment of consumers of public specialised mental health services, and information on whether consumers improve following mental health care. A set of clinical measures are used to gather information about clinical mental health status and functioning. Measures can be completed by:
clinicians about the consumer (known as clinician-rated),
the consumer about themselves (consumer-rated), and
families and carers about the consumer (carer-rated).
Casemix information, describing the cohort of users of this service, such as mental health legal status, is also collected.
All consumers who receive clinical care in public specialised mental health services should be included in the NOCC, including psychiatric inpatient, residential and ambulatory (non-admitted) settings.
This NMDS combines with the National Outcomes and Casemix Collection NBEDS 2023-24 to comprise all data collection for the National Outcomes and Casemix Collection (NOCC). The data for NOCC are collected differently across states and territories and collection of some data items is either optional or conditional on age, setting, and occasion type. As such, the NOCC is split into this NMDS for mandatory items and an adjunct NBEDS for items not collected consistently across all jurisdictions. The data set specifications are used in conjunction to report total outcomes and casemix data.
Outcome measures attempt to determine whether a change has occurred for a consumer as a result of mental health care and to assess the type and magnitude of that change. By using a range of outcome measures, consumers and clinicians can work together to map the journey of recovery over time. The NOCC measures contribute to the development of clinical practice, aiming to improve the quality of care for consumers of Australia’s public sector mental health services.
Outcome measures can assist consumers in considering options for their care and treatment and support the development of a therapeutic relationship between the clinician and the consumer. The measures can also be used by clinicians to monitor the progress of the consumer, evaluate the effectiveness of treatments and thereby provide information that will assist decisions about clinical practices. The outcome measures can also be used by team leaders and service managers to better understand the needs of consumers, to plan for the allocation of resources and to identify where service improvements are required.
Casemix classifications provide a consistent method of classifying types of patients, their treatment and associated outcomes. In popular usage, casemix refers to the mix of types of patients treated by a hospital or other health care facility (Eagar and Hindle 1994). NOCC casemix data describes the various groupings of the specialised mental health service treatments based on the type and mix of the patients treated, including the expected outcome of treatment (e.g., improvement or maintenance), grouping by diagnostic cohort (e.g., outcomes for people depending on their mental health diagnosis) and whether or not the patient is receiving treatment voluntarily. Casemix measures collected for the NOCC are:
The NOCC protocol defines the minimum requirements and should not be interpreted as confining participating states and territories to those requirements. Additionally, local services may elect to collect additional measures or to increase the frequency of ratings.
Casemix requirements need key data to be collected only once during each episode of care to allow the episode to be adequately described and classified. From the casemix perspective, the only issue is to ensure that the information is collected at the most appropriate point within the overall episode.
Measurement of consumer outcomes by definition presumes a comparison over time and requires data to be collected on at least two sequential occasions in order to allow assessment of change in the consumer’s health status.
Measures can be consumer rated or clinician rated and should be collected using a matrix of collection occasion, setting and age group:
See NOCC collection protocol (Australian Mental Health Outcomes and Classifications Network, 2021) for more details.
Implementation start date:
01/07/2023
Implementation end date:
30/06/2024
Comments:
Glossary items
Glossary terms that are relevant to this national minimum data set are included here.
Admission
Admitted patient mental health care service
Ambulatory care
Ambulatory mental health care service
Gender
Geographic indicator
Mental health care
Mental health consumer
Mental health phase of care
Resident
Residential mental health care service
Resource Utilisation Groups—Activities of Daily Living
Separation
Sex
Source and reference attributes
Submitting organisation:
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
Reference documents:
AustralianMental Health Outcomes and Classification Network 2022. Mental Health National Outcomes and Casemix Collection: Technical specification of State and Territory reporting requirements, Version 2.10. Viewed 25 July 2022 https://docs.validator.com.au/nocc/02.10/
Eagar K and Hindle D (1994). Casemix in Australia: an overview. The National Casemix Education Series No.2. Canberra: Department of Human Services and Health.