Highlights

During 2010–11, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare saw the culmination of work in the following areas of activity:

Information for policy and related purposes

New developments and renewal

  • development of the new Specialist Homelessness Services collection
  • pilot testing of the draft Mental Health Interventions Classification using a range of data collection methodologies, including iPads
  • production of the first analysis of information on patients with dementia from the new Aged Care Funding Instrument, and on older people leaving hospital assisted by the Transition Care Program
  • completion of a review of the Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services National Minimum Data Set
  • revision of the presentation of data in the Cancer in Australia 2010: an overview publication and its companion Cancer in Australia 2010: in brief publication
  • production of user-friendly, accessible online snapshots of information and statistics on asthma and on male health
  • an independent stakeholder review of Australian Hospital Statistics publications to further develop the AIHW's suite of hospitals products

Quality and standards

  • development of an on-line hospitals data validation tool, Validata®, to improve timeliness and quality of national hospital statistics products
  • development of methodologies and infrastructure that allow increasingly large and complex data linkage projects to be undertaken
  • promulgation of data standards throughout the health and community services data communities
  • release of the National Indicator Catalogue containing all COAG performance indicators and their specifications

Further information on these highlights is provided in the 'In brief' section and in Chapter 1 Our performance and Chapter 3 Our operating units.