National hospital morbidity data collection
Recent releases
Australian hospital statistics 2008-09 (17 June 2010) (media release and publication)
Mental health services in Australia 2006-07 (27 August 2009) (media release and publication)
Estimating the impact of selected National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC) reforms on health care expenditure, 2003 to 2033 (5 August 2009) (publication)
Popular titles
![]() Australia's health 2010 |
![]() Australia's health 2010: in brief |
National hospital morbidity database (NHMD)
- The NHMD is compiled from data supplied by the state and territory health authorities. It is a collection of electronic confidentialised summary records for separations (that is, episodes of care) in public and private hospitals in Australia. Data are held for the years 1993-94 to 2008-09.
- Some of the information available in the NHMD is presented through
interactive data tables. They contain
information for:
- Principal Diagnosis, 1993-94 to 2007-08
- Diagnosis Related Group, 1997-98 to 2007-08
- Procedure, 2000-01 to 2007-08
For information on the National Hospital Morbidity Data Collection and Data request service visit the Hospital data.
- The National health data dictionary definitions form the basis of the database, ensuring a high standard of data comparability.
- Diagnoses, procedures and external causes of injury are recorded using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and related Health Problems, Tenth revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM). For further information on the version used for each collection year see the ICD Coded Data Fact Sheet.
- Almost all hospitals in Australia are included in the database: public acute and public psychiatric hospitals, private acute and psychiatric hospitals, and private free standing day hospital facilities. The total number of records for 2008-09 was 8.1 million.
Example of data sourced from the NHMD
The following hospital separations figure was taken from Australian hospital statistics 2008-09, Chapter 7, Figure 1, page 131.
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Abbreviations:
AR-DRG-Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Group; ALOS-average
length of stay; CC-complication or comorbidity; Cat-
Catastrophic; Sev- Severe; W-with; (a) Separations for which the care type was reported as Newborn with no qualified days, and records for Hospital boarders and Posthumous organ procurement have been excluded. Figure 7.1: Data reported for separations for persons aged 60-64 years, all hospitals, 2008-09 |
For more examples of NHMD data, please see chapters 3, 7, 8, 9, and 11 of Australian hospital statistics 2008-09.



