Establishment—number of group session occasions of service for non-admitted patients (emergency services), total N[NNNNN]

Guide for use:

Each group is to be counted once, irrespective of size or the number of staff providing services.

A patient who first contacts the hospital and receives non-admitted care, for example through emergency departments, and is subsequently admitted, should have both components of care enumerated separately. Where possible, non-admitted occasions of service that are provided to patients who are subsequently admitted should be identified as a subset of the total occasions of service.

Comments:

This metadata item is derived from metadata items that are not currently specified in METeOR, but which are recorded in various ways by hospitals/outpatient departments. Examples include identifiers of individual consultations/visits, and diagnostic tests.

This metadata item identifies types of services provided to non-admitted patients in different institutional ways in different systems. It is not a summary casemix classification.

The list of Type of non-admitted patient care categories was to be developed using typical functional units or cost centres within existing institutions. These would include designated wards or departments and specialised clinics. Although the current statistical/financial returns submitted to the various health authorities by their hospitals do not provide a minimum subset, an effort has been made to define the categories in respect to those areas commonly collected. Many functional units provide services to both admitted patients and non-admitted patients, for example pathology. Only occasions of service for non-admitted patients should be included in this section.