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Definition

The purpose of this National Minimum Data Set is to collect information about care provided to admitted patients in Australian hospitals.

The scope is episodes of care for admitted patients in all public and private acute and psychiatric hospitals, free standing day hospital facilities and alcohol and drug treatment centres in Australia. Hospitals operated by the Australian Defence Force, corrections authorities and in Australia's off-shore territories may also be included. Hospitals specialising in dental, ophthalmic aids and other specialised acute medical or surgical care are included.

Hospital boarders and still births are not included as they are not admitted to hospital. Posthumous organ procurement episodes are also not included.

Scope links with other NMDS

Episodes of care for admitted patients which occur partly or fully in designated psychiatric units of public acute hospitals or in public psychiatric hospitals:

  • Admitted patient mental health care NMDS.

Episodes of care for admitted patients where care type is palliative care:

  • Admitted patient palliative care NMDS.

Glossary items

Some previous Knowledgebase data element concepts are available in the METeOR glossary. Glossary items are available online through links in the relevant metadata items. In addition links to the glossary terms that are relevant to this National Minimum Data Set are listed below.

Admission

Diagnosis

Episode of acute care

Hospital boarder

Hospital-in-the-home care

Live birth

Neonate

Newborn qualification status

Organ procurement - posthumous

Same-day patient

Separation

Metadata items in this Data Set Specification

Below is a list of all the components within this Dataset Specification.
Each entry includes the item name, whether the item is optional, mandatory or conditional and the maximum times the item can occur in a dataset.
If the items must occur in a particular order in the dataset, the sequence number is included before the item name.


Data Elements
Reference Data Element Data Type Length Inclusion #
Episode of admitted patient care (newborn)—number of qualified days, total N[NNNN] Number 5 conditional 1
Episode of admitted patient care—admission date, DDMMYYYY
Specific Information:

Right justified and zero filled.

admission date ≤ separation date

admission date ≥ date of birth

Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—admission mode, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—admission urgency status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—condition onset flag, code N Number 1 mandatory 99
Episode of admitted patient care—diagnosis related group, code (AR-DRG v 6) ANNA String 4 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—intended length of hospital stay, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—major diagnostic category, code (AR-DRG v 6) NN String 2 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—number of days of hospital-in-the-home care, total {N[NN]} Number 3 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—number of leave days, total N[NN]
Specific Information:

For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies:

(Episode of admitted patient care—separation date, DDMMYYYY minus Episode of admitted patient care—admission date, DDMMYYYY) minus Admitted patient hospital stay—number of leave days, total N[NN] must be ≥ 0 days.

- - mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—patient election status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—procedure, code (ACHI 7th edn) NNNNN-NN
Specific Information:

As a minimum requirement procedure codes must be valid codes from the Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI) procedure codes and validated against the nationally agreed age and sex edits. More extensive edit checking of codes may be utilised within individual hospitals and state and territory information systems.

An unlimited number of diagnosis and procedure codes should be able to be collected in hospital morbidity systems. Where this is not possible, a minimum of 20 codes should be able to be collected.

Record all procedures undertaken during an episode of care in accordance with the ACHI (7th edition) Australian Coding Standards.

The order of codes should be determined using the following hierarchy:

  • procedure performed for treatment of the principal diagnosis
  • procedure performed for the treatment of an additional diagnosis
  • diagnostic/exploratory procedure related to the principal diagnosis
  • diagnostic/exploratory procedure related to an additional diagnosis for the episode of care.
Number 7 mandatory 99
Episode of admitted patient care—referral source, public psychiatric hospital code NN String 2 conditional 1
Episode of admitted patient care—separation date, DDMMYYYY
Specific Information:

For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies this field must:

  • be ≤ last day of financial year
  • be ≥ first day of financial year
  • be ≥ Admission date
Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—separation mode, code N - - mandatory 1
Episode of care—additional diagnosis, code (ICD-10-AM 7th edn) ANN{.N[N]}
Specific Information:
An unlimited number of diagnosis and procedure codes should be able to be collected in hospital morbidity systems. Where this is not possible, a minimum of 20 codes should be able to be collected.
String 6 conditional 99
Episode of care—inter-hospital contracted patient status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of care—mental health legal status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of care—number of psychiatric care days, total N[NNNN]
Specific Information:

Total days in psychiatric care must be: ≥ zero; and ≤ length of stay.

- - mandatory 1
Episode of care—principal diagnosis, code (ICD-10-AM 7th edn) ANN{.N[N]}
Specific Information:

The principal diagnosis is a major determinant in the classification of Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups and Major Diagnostic Categories.

Where the principal diagnosis is recorded prior to discharge (as in the annual census of public psychiatric hospital patients), it is the current provisional principal diagnosis. Only use the admission diagnosis when no other diagnostic information is available. The current provisional diagnosis may be the same as the admission diagnosis.

- - mandatory 1
Episode of care—principal source of funding, hospital code NN String 2 mandatory 1
Establishment—Australian state/territory identifier, code N
Specific Information:

This data element applies to the location of the establishment and not to the patient's area of usual residence.

Number 1 mandatory 1
Establishment—organisation identifier (state/territory), NNNNN - - mandatory 1
Establishment—region identifier, X[X] - - mandatory 1
Establishment—sector, code N - - mandatory 1
Hospital service—care type, code N[N].N - - mandatory 1
Injury event—activity type, code (ICD-10-AM 7th edn) ANNNN
Specific Information:
To be used with ICD-10-AM external cause codes.
- - mandatory 99
Injury event—external cause, code (ICD-10-AM 7th edn) ANN{.N[N]}
Specific Information:
As a minimum requirement, the external cause codes must be listed in the ICD-10-AM classification.
- - mandatory 99
Injury event—place of occurrence, code (ICD-10-AM 7th edn) ANN{.N[N]}
Specific Information:
To be used with ICD-10-AM external cause codes.
- - mandatory 99
Patient—hospital insurance status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—area of usual residence, geographical location code (ASGC 2009) NNNNN - - mandatory 1
Person—country of birth, code (SACC 2008) NNNN - - mandatory 1
Person: Date of Birth, DDMMYYYY
Specific Information:

This field must not be null.

National Minimum Data Sets:

For the provision of State and Territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies this field must:

  • be less than or equal to Admission date, Date patient presents or Service contact date
  • be consistent with diagnoses and procedure codes, for records to be grouped.
Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Person—Indigenous status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—person identifier, XXXXXX[X(14)] - - mandatory 1
Person: Sex, Code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—weight (measured), total grams NNNN
Specific Information:

For the provision of state and territory hospital data to Commonwealth agencies this metadata item must be consistent with diagnoses and procedure codes for valid grouping.

Conditional Inclusion:
Weight on the date the infant is admitted should be recorded if the weight is less than or equal to 9000g and age is less than 365 days.
Number 4 conditional 1

Comments

Comments:

Scope links with other NMDS

Episodes of care for admitted patients which occur partly or fully in designated psychiatric units of public acute hospitals or in public psychiatric hospitals:

  • Admitted patient mental health care NMDS.

Episodes of care for admitted patients where care type is palliative care:

  • Admitted patient palliative care NMDS.

Glossary items

Some previous Knowledgebase data element concepts are available in the METeOR glossary. Glossary items are available online through links in the relevant metadata items. In addition links to the glossary terms that are relevant to this National Minimum Data Set are listed below.

Admission

Diagnosis

Episode of acute care

Hospital boarder

Hospital-in-the-home care

Live birth

Neonate

Newborn qualification status

Organ procurement - posthumous

Same-day patient

Separation

References

Related content

Relation Count
As a numerator in an Indicator 0
As a denominator in an Indicator 0
As a disaggregation in an Indicator 0