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Definition

The purpose of the Admitted patient care national minimum data set (APC NMDS) is to collect information about care provided to admitted patients in Australian hospitals.

The scope of the APC NMDS 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 NMDSs

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

Glossary terms that are relevant to this National minimum data set are included here.

Admission

Clinical intervention

Clinical review

Diagnosis

Elective surgery

Episode of acute care

Geographic indicator

Hospital boarder

Hospital-in-the-home care

Intensive care unit

Live birth

Neonate

Newborn qualification status

Organ procurement - posthumous

Resident

Residential mental health care service

Same-day patient

Separation

Urban Centre

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 #
Address: Australian Postcode, (Postcode datafile) NNNN
Specific Information:
To be reported for the address of the patient.
Number 4 mandatory 1
Contracted hospital care—organisation identifier, NNX[X]NNNNN String 9 mandatory 1
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—duration of continuous ventilatory support, total hours NNNN
Conditional Inclusion:
This data element is only required to be reported for episodes of care where the admitted patient spent time in continuous ventilatory support.
- - conditional 1
Episode of admitted patient care—intended length of hospital stay, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Episode of admitted patient care—length of stay in intensive care unit, total hours NNNN
Conditional Inclusion:
The data element is only required to be reported for episodes of care where the admitted patient spent time in an intensive care unit.
Number 4 conditional 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—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 8th edn) ANN{.N[N]}
Conditional Inclusion:
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 8th edn) ANN{.N[N]}
Conditional Inclusion:

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.

String 6 mandatory 1
Episode of care—source of funding, patient funding source code NN - - 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—geographic remoteness, admitted patient care remoteness classification (ASGC-RA) N String 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] Number 2 mandatory 1
Injury event—activity type, code (ICD-10-AM 8th edn) ANNNN
Specific Information:
As a minimum requirement, the external cause codes must be listed in the ICD-10-AM classification.
- - mandatory 99
Injury event—external cause, code (ICD-10-AM 8th 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 8th 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, statistical area level 2 (SA2) code (ASGS 2011) N(9) String 9 mandatory 1
Person: Country of Birth, Code (SACC 2011) NNNN Number 4 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—eligibility status, Medicare code N Number 1 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
Record—identifier, X[X(14)]
Specific Information:

In the context of the Admitted patient care NMDS, the Record identifier data element exists to aid with data processing. This data element is generated for inclusion in data submissions to facilitate referencing of specific records in discussions between the receiving agency and the reporting body. It is to be used solely for this purpose.

When stipulated in a data specification, each record in a data submission will be assigned a unique numeric or alphanumeric record identifier to permit easy referencing of individual records in discussions between the receiving agency and the reporting body. The unique record identifier assigned by the reporting body should be generated in a fashion that allows the associated data record to be traced to its original form in the reporting body's source database.

Reporting jurisdictions may use their own alphabetic, numeric or alphanumeric coding system.

This field cannot be left blank.

String 15 mandatory 1

Comments

Comments:

Scope links with other NMDSs

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

Glossary terms that are relevant to this National minimum data set are included here.

Admission

Clinical intervention

Clinical review

Diagnosis

Elective surgery

Episode of acute care

Geographic indicator

Hospital boarder

Hospital-in-the-home care

Intensive care unit

Live birth

Neonate

Newborn qualification status

Organ procurement - posthumous

Resident

Residential mental health care service

Same-day patient

Separation

Urban Centre

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