Admitted Patient Data Collection NSW Ministry of Health Background The NSW Admitted Patient Data Collection (APDC) records all inpatient separations (discharges, transfers and deaths) from all public, private, psychiatric and repatriation hospitals in NSW, as well as public multi-purpose services, private day procedure centres and public nursing homes. In order to identify acute hospital use in the Admitted Patient Data Collection, it is strongly recommended that applications for data include the “Peer group” and the “Acute hospital flag” variables. Patient separations from developmental disability institutions and private nursing homes are not included. While the APDC includes data relating to NSW residents hospitalised interstate, names and addresses are not included on these records and therefore cannot be included in record linkage studies. Public hospital APDC data are recorded in terms of episodes of care (EOC). An episode of care ends with the patient ending a period of stay in hospital (e.g. by discharge, transfer or death) or by becoming a different “type” of patient within the same period of stay. The categories of types of care are listed under the variable “Episode of care type”. For private hospitals, each APDC record represents a complete hospital stay. APDC records are counted based on the date of separation (discharge) from hospital. Tips for using APDC data in linkage studies There are no patient names in the APDC prior to July 2000. As names are one of the principal variables used to link records between and within datasets, linkage studies should use APDC data from July 2001 onwards. Names are not available for admissions to private hospitals – while the CHeReL is able to link these records based on other demographic details, the linkage is likely to be less accurate. Caution must therefore be exercised in interpreting results where private hospital data are involved. Access to information on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples An application to the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council (AH&MRC) ethics committee should be made for research projects for which one or more of the following apply: The experience of Aboriginal people is an explicit focus of all or part of the research Data collection is explicitly directed at Aboriginal peoples Aboriginal peoples, as a group, are to be examined in the results The information has an impact on one or more Aboriginal communities Aboriginal health funds are a source of funding
Admitted Patient Data Collection – Variable information Variable (variable name in data) Description/Notes Comments Hospital type (hospital_type) Flag to indicate if facility is public or private. 1=Public hospital 2=Private hospital Acute Hospital Flag (acute_flag) Indicates whether or not the patient received the service at an acute facility. This is one of the variables required in order to identify services provided in an acute hospital. Formerly known as ‘acuteflg’ Age (age_recode) The age in of the patient derived from subtracting the date of birth from the date of admission. Age has been re-coded, using the ‘yrdiff’ SAS function that returns the difference in years between birth date (from STAY table) and episode start date. Formerly as ‘age’. Trial
Age group (age_grouping_recode) Five year age group, derived from re-coded age 1 =0 - 4 years 2 =5 - 9 years 3 =10 - 14 years 4 =15 - 19 5 =20 - 24 years 6 = 25 - 29 years 7 = 30 - 34 years 8 = 35 - 39 9 =40 - 44 years 10 =45 - 49 years 11 =50 - 54 years 12 =55 - 59 13 =60 - 64 years 14 =65 - 69 years 15 =70 - 74 years 16 =75 - 79 years 17 =80 - 84 18 =85+ years Formerly known as ‘agegrp’. Area Health Service of facility (AHSHOS) 2005 boundaries See Attachment 1 – Area Health Services Formerly known as ‘AHS05HOS’. Local Health District of facility (area_identifier) 2010 boundaries Formerly known as ‘LHDHosp’. Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Group (ar_drg) Formerly known as ‘ardrg’. ARDRG version (ar_drg_version) The version number of the ARDRG codeset. Formerly known as ‘ardrg_version’.
Birth date (birth_date) Full date of birth will only be supplied if sufficient justification is supplied that age is insufficient. Date of birth may otherwise be supplied as MMYYYY. Formerly known as ‘dob’. Procedure block number (block_numP, All procedures are grouped into blocks of similar characteristics (body site and/or particular procedural intervention) to assist with data aggregation. ICD-10-AM Formerly known as ‘procbl1’-‘procbl50’. Clinical codeset (clinical_codeset) An identifier to identify the current classification scheme a procedure or diagnosis has been mapped to.
Cost weight F (cost_weight_f) The estimated value of the relative resource requirements for a given separation, where all costs for Dept. of Veterans' Affairs patients are calculated based upon the current cost of care standards. Formerly known as ‘cost_wt_f’. Cost weight version (cost_weight_version) The identifier of the set of cost weights that may be applied to an episode. 05/06 06/07 09/10 10/11 Formerly known as ‘SRG_cost_weight_version’. Country of birth (SACC) (country_of_birth_SACC) The country in which the patient was born Codes are Standard Australian Classification of Countries Formerly known as ‘cobsacc’. Country of usual residence (country_of_usual_residence) The country where the patient's home address is located. are Standard Australian Classification of Countries Previously not available.
Emergency status (emergency_status_recode) Urgency of admission. Indicates whether or not, in the opinion of the treating clinician, the admission was an emergency, that is, care or treatment was required within 24 Applies to Public Hospital data only Emergency status has been re-coded as follows: if source of referral =’Type change admission’' then emergency status is re-coded to ‘3’ (Urgency Not Assigned). if emergency status =’ 4’ then emergency status is re-coded to ‘ 3’. if emergency status recode =’ 5’ then emergency status is re-coded to ‘ 2. 1 = Emergency 2 = Non-Emergency/Planned 3 = Urgency Not Assigned 4 = Maternity/Newborn 5 = Regular Same Day Planned Admissions Formerly known as ‘emergncy’. Emergency Department Status (ed_status) A flag that indicates whether a patient during an episode of care has been treated within the emergency department, and if so, whether they were also admitted to a ward. 1 =Entire episode within ED (for Level >=3) only 2= Episode includes ED (for Level >=3) and ward 3= Episode with no ED involvement 4= Entire episode within ED (for 1 or 2) only 5= Episode includes ED (for Level 1 or 2) and ward 9= Not assigned Previously not available.
Episode day stay length of stay in hours The number of hours a patient who is admitted and separated on the same day is admitted to the hospital. Episode_day_stay_los has been re-coded as follows: for public hospitals: Episode_day_stay_los is renamed to Episode_day_stay_los_recode. for private hospitals: episode_day_stay_los_recode = integer part of (episode_day_stay_los divided by 10) Formerly as ‘dolos’. Episode end date (episode_end_date) The date on which an admitted patient completes an episode of care, by either a formal discharge from the hospital or by a statistical type change to a subsequent episode. Formerly known as ‘sepdate’. Episode end time (episode_end_time) The time on an admitted patient completes an episode of care, by either a formal discharge from the hospital or by a statistical type change to a subsequent episode. Formerly known as ‘septime’.
Episode length of stay (episode_length_of_stay) The number of days the patient spends in the hospital i.e. the number of days between the episode start date and episode end date (inclusive) minus the number of leave days i.e. los = episode end date –episode start date – leave day. Formerly known as ‘los’. Episode of care type (episode_of_care_type) This item is used to record the principal clinical intent or treatment goal of the care provided to the patient for the episode of care. 1 = Acute Care 2 = Rehabilitation Care 3 = Palliative Care 4 = Maintenance Care 5 = Newborn Care 6 = Other Care 7 = Geriatric Evaluation and Management 8 = Psychogeriatric Care 9 = Organ Procurement – Posthumous 0 = Hospital Boarder Formerly known as ‘csrvccat’. Episode sequence number (episode_sequence_number) The sequence number of an episode during a period of stay. Also known as ‘episode_sequence_number’ previously.
Financial sub program (financial_sub_program) A code to identify the various components of the mental health financial program to aid in the identification of service specific activities, and the identification of the primary episode of care costs were incurred. B = Child & Adolescent Care C = General & Care D = Older People Psychiatric Care E = Forensic Psychiatric Care Previously not available. Health insurance on admission (health_insurance_on_admit) Indicates whether the person receiving the inpatient service is insured with top cover or basic cover, or not insured at the time of admission. This variable is not intended to indicate whether or not the person utilises hospital benefit entitlements. 0 = No – private patient 1 = Full cover – private patient 2 = cover – private patient 3 = No 4 = Ancillary cover only – private patient 5 = No cover – public patient 6 = Full cover – public patient 7 = Basic cover – public patient 8 = Ancillary cover only – public patient 9 = Unknown/Not stated ** Other** = invalid data Formerly known as ‘inssat’.
Hours in ICU (hours_in_icu) The number of hours the patient spent in a designated intensive care unit for this episode of care. Formerly known as ‘icuhours’. Hours on mechanical ventilation (hours_on_mech_ventilation) The total number of completed hours that the patient has spent on mechanical ventilation during the episode of care. Formerly as ‘hrsmechv’. Indigenous status (indigenous_status) Whether the person is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, based on the person’s own self-report. See notes above regarding access to this variable. 1 = Aboriginal 2 = Torres Strait Islander 3 = Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin 4 = Neither Aboriginal nor Torres Strait Islander 5 = Indigenous – not further specified 8 = Declined to respond 9 = Unknown Formerly known as ‘abtsi’.
Involuntary days in psychiatric unit (involuntary_days_in_psych) The sum of the number of days or part days of the episode of care that the person was an involuntary patient the Mental Health Act, minus the sum of leave days occurring during the episode within the designated unit. Formerly known as ‘invpsych’. Last psychiatric admission date (last_psych_admission_date) Where the person has had a previous admission to a designated psychiatric unit in any facility, the year that the person was last separated from the designated psychiatric unit. Formerly as ‘psyyrlst’ (year only).
Payment status on separation (payment_status_on_sep) Indicates the payment status of the patient. See Attachment 5 – Payment Status on Separation Formerly known as ‘payst_v4’. Peer group (peer_group) Facility peer grouping. The grouping is updated annually by the Department of Health. Therefore, a number of hospitals are classified into different peer groups in different years. This is one of the variables required in order to identify services provided in an acute hospital. See Attachment 6 – ISC Yellow Book peer group Formerly known as ‘hcdbpeer’.
Sex (sex) The biological sex of the patient. Post and Pre Sex Redefining Procedures are coded to the biological sex at birth, not their newly assigned sex. Transvestites are coded to their biological sex, not their gender role 1 =Male 2 = Female 3 = Indeterminate/Intersex 4 = Transgender 9 = Not stated/inadequately described/unknown Also known as ‘sex’ previously.
Stay number (encrypted) (stay_number_e) The unique HIE stay number for each period of stay. Formerly known as ‘staynum_encrypted’. Unit type on admission (unit_type_on_admission) The designation of each bed, in terms of type of care or group of patients, which the patient is accommodated in during his/her stay in hospital. See Attachment 8 – unit type on admission Formerly known as ‘unittyp2’. Unqualified baby bed days (unqual_baby_bed_days) The number days a newborn was unqualified under the Health Insurance Act. Formerly known as ‘unqualday’. AHS 2005 code (AHS_2005_code) 2005 boundaries See Attachment 1 – Area Health Services Formerly known as ‘ahs05res’. LHD 2010 CODE (LHD_2010_code) Local Health District of residence (2010 boundaries) See Attachment 9 – Local Health District Formerly known as ‘lhn10res’. ML 2012 CODE (ML_2012_code) Medicare Locals 2012. Formerly known as ‘ml12res’. SA2 2011 CODE (SA2_2011_code) Statistical Area Level 2 Formerly known as ‘sa2res’. SA3 2011 CODE (SA3_2011_code) Statistical Area Level 3 Formerly known as ‘sa3res’.
Attachment 1 – Area Health Services (AHS) Code Description X160 Childrens Hospital at Westmead X170 Justice Health X500 Sydney South West AHS X510 Eastern Sydney & Illawarra AHS X520 Sydney West AHS X530 Northern Sydney & Central Coast AHS X540 Hunter & New England AHS X550 North Coast AHS X560 Greater Southern AHS X570 Greater Western AHS X900 Ambulance Service of NSW X910 NSW Not Further Defined X920 Victoria X930 Queensland X940 Australia X950 Western Australia X960 Tasmania X970 Northern Territory X980 Australia Capital Territory X990 Other Australian Territories X997 Overseas Locality X998 No Fixed Locality X999 Not Stated/Other