To assist in interpreting hospitals data, more detailed information about the
are available to download in the technical supplements below.
States and territories provide data on hospitals to the AIHW under the National Health Information Agreement. These data are compiled in the National Hospitals Data Collection (NHDC). The NHDC is comprised of the following databases:
More information about each database is below:
The National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD) is a compilation of episode-level records from admitted patient morbidity data collection systems in Australian hospitals.
The data supplied are based on the National minimum data set (NMDS) for Admitted patient care and include demographic, administrative and length of stay data, as well as data on the diagnoses of the patients, the procedures they underwent in hospital and external causes of injury and poisoning.
The purpose of the NMDS for Admitted patient care is to collect information about care provided to admitted patients in Australian hospitals.
The scope of the 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 are not in scope but some are included.
The AIHW has undertaken the collection and reporting of the data in this report under the auspices of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, through the National Health Information Agreement.
The data supplied by state and territory health authorities were used by the AIHW to assemble the National Elective Surgery Waiting Times Data Collection (NESWTDC), covering waiting times and other characteristics of elective surgery in all public hospitals.
The NESWTDC covers most public hospitals that undertake elective surgery. Hospitals that were not included may not undertake elective surgery, may not have had waiting lists, or may have had different waiting list characteristics from those of reporting hospitals. Some smaller remote hospitals may have different patterns of service delivery to those of other hospitals because specialists providing elective surgery services visit these hospitals only periodically.
Before 2016–17, the elective surgery waiting list data were reported to two separate national minimum data sets (NMDSs), which are available on the AIHW’s Metadata Online Register (METeOR):
From 1 July 2016, the Elective surgery waiting times NMDS comprises both removals and census data—that is, patients on, or removed from, elective surgery waiting lists (see METeOR identifier 684521).
The NNAPC(agg)D is based on data provided for the:
It holds aggregated clinic-level data on:
The scope is non-admitted patient service events involving non-admitted patients provided by:
The reference period for this data set is 2019–20. The data set includes records for non-admitted patient service events provided between 1 July 2019 and 30 June 2020.
The NNAP(el)D is based on the Non-admitted patient National Best Endeavours Data Set (NAP NBEDS) (METeOR identifier 699590).
It holds episode-level data including:
For 2019–20, the scope of the NAP NBEDS is non-admitted patient service events provided by:
The aim of the Non-admitted Patient Care data collections is to report episode-level data on non-admitted activity in Australia’s public hospital system. Data suppliers report non-admitted patient activity in either aggregate or episode-level format.
The episode level data is collected under the Non-admitted patient National Best Endeavours Data Set (NAP NBEDS) while the aggregate level data is collected under the Non-admitted patient care aggregate National Best Endeavours Data Set (NAPC aggregate NBEDS).
The NAP NBEDS and NAPC aggregate NBEDS work together to collect data on non-admitted activity in the public hospital system. The two collections are designed to be complimentary, with the NAPC aggregate NBEDS providing the remainder of non-admitted activity that is unable to be provided at the episode-level.
Each year the collection increasingly reports on episode-level data, however not all data suppliers are able to report data in this format. In 2019–20, 75% of non-admitted patient service events were recorded at the episode-level and 25% of service events were recorded at the aggregate-level.
In 2019–20, the data recorded under the NAP NBEDS was used to supplement the data recorded under the NAPC aggregate NBEDS to form a more complete view of non-admitted patient activity in Australian public hospitals.
The National Public Hospitals Establishments Data (NPHED) is based on data reported by state and territory health authorities for the Local Hospital Networks/Public hospital establishments National minimum data set (LHN/PHE NMDS).
The LHN/PHE NMDS is defined in the AIHW’s Metadata Online Registry (METEOR).
The scope of the LHN/PHE NMDS includes 3 levels of hierarchical reporting:
The LHN/PHE NMDS allows the collection of recurrent expenditure, revenue, admitted contracted care and staffing information whether delivered and/or managed by hospitals or other administrative units (LHNs and state/territory health authorities).
Information relevant to interpretation of the ABS’s Private hospitals Australia report is available on the ABS website
The AIHW has collected and reported on the NNAPEDCD under the auspices of the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council, through the National Health Information Agreement.
The data supplied by state and territory health authorities for the Non-admitted Patient Emergency Department Care (NAPEDC) National Minimum Data Set/National Best Endeavours Data Set (NMDS/NBEDS) were used by the AIHW to assemble the National Non‑admitted Patient Emergency Department Care Database (NNAPEDCD). The data cover waiting times and other characteristics of presentations to public hospital emergency departments.
The NNAPEDCD provides information on the care provided (including waiting times for care) for non‑admitted patients registered for care in public hospital emergency departments that have:
The AIHW publishes data cubes based on the National Hospitals Data Collection, you can access these from the following links:
If you are looking for statistics that are not available here, we also offer a data request service. Customised data analyses can be provided, subject to data quality and confidentiality requirements, from a range of AIHW-held databases. Please note that a fee may apply for this service.
National Hospitals Data Collection
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