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released: 1 Sep 2003 author: AIHW

Knowledge of the interface between acute hospital care, community care and residential aged care is important in order to ensure that older people receive the most appropriate care. However, existing national data provide poor information on the movements of clients between the sectors. During 2001 and 2002 the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare explored the feasibility of linking - without using names - the currently available national hospital morbidity and residential aged care collections to produce a linked data set for examining key policy issues. This report presents the results of these investigations. The study was carried out under the auspices of the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council Working Group on the Care of Older Australians.

ISSN 1325-6025; ISBN 978 1 74024 289 9; Cat. no. AGE 31; 124pp.; OUT OF PRINT

Full publication

Publication table of contents

  • Preliminary material (45K PDF)
    • Title page and verso
    • Contents
    • List of tables
    • List of figures
    • List of illustrations
    • Preface
    • Acknowledgments
    • Summary of results and recommendations
  • Sections
    1. Context (25K PDF)
      1. Background
      2. AIHW feasibility study
      3. AHMAC Care of Older Australians Working Group
    2. Aims
    3. The linkage strategy
      1. The linkage variables
      2. The linkage process
      3. The data
    4. Testing the feasibility of the linkage strategy (47K PDF)
      1. Unique linkage keys in the residential aged care data
      2. Unique linkage keys in the hospital morbidity data
      3. Unique keys in the linked database
      4. Summary
    5. Validation of linkages using other variables(45K PDF)
      1. Mode of separation from hospital
      2. Place of assessment for residential aged care admissions
      3. Marital status
      4. Summary
    6. Results for Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania (124K PDF)
      1. Unique linkage keys in the unlinked data
      2. Unique linkage keys in the linked data.
      3. Validation
      4. Summary
    7. Analytical potential: examples
      1. General client characteristics
      2. Length of stay in hospital
      3. Diagnoses
      4. Costs
      5. Examining particular issues: an example
      6. Possible future analyses
    8. Data development (48K PDF)
      1. Mode of separation (hospital)
      2. Accommodation setting prior to admission to residential aged care
      3. Other developments
    9. Future directions (20K PDF)
      1. Next steps - short term.
      2. Next steps - longer term
  • End Matter
    • Appendix
      • Appendix 1 Additional tables for New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory (53K PDF)
        1. Additional tables
        2. Preliminary tables including same day hospital separations
      • Appendix 2 Tables for Western Australia (31K PDF)
      • Appendix 3 Tables for South Australia (32K PDF)
      • Appendix 4 Tables for Tasmania (30K PDF)
      • Appendix 5 The data (18K PDF)
        1. Hospital morbidity data
        2. Residential aged care data
    • Glossary (16K PDF)
    • Reference

Recommended citation

AIHW 2003. Interface between hospital and residential aged care, feasibility study on linking hospital morbidity and residential aged care data. Cat. no. AGE 31. Canberra: AIHW.