National hospital morbidity data collection
Recent releases
Australian hospital statistics 2006-07 (30 May 2008) (media release and publication)
Mental health services in Australia 2004-05 (27 April 2007) (media release and publication)
Report on the evaluation of the National Minimum Data Set for Public Hospital Establishments (19 February 2007) (publication)
Popular titles
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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 2006-07.
- 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 (183KB DOC)
- 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 2006-07 was 7.6 million.
Example of data sourced from the NHMD
The following hospital separations figure was taken from Australian hospital statistics 2006-07, chapter 8, figure 1, page 186.
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Notes
Figure 8.1: Separations per 1,000 population, by age group, sex and reported Indigenous state, all hospitals, selected states and territories, 2006-07 |
For more examples of NHMD data, please see Hospitals at a glance.




