Diabetes: Australian facts

Australia uses the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) to code causes of death (WHO 2019). In this report, deaths were coded using the 10th Revision (ICD-10) (Table 1).

Source: WHO 2019.

For hospital diagnoses and procedures, a classification modified for Australia is used. Hospital data were coded using the ICD-10-AM classification (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Conditions, 10th Revision, Australian Modification).

Diagnosis and procedure data for 2019–20 were reported to the NHMD using the 11th edition of the ICD-10-AM (ACCD 2018a), incorporating the Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI) (ACCD 2018b) (Tables 2 and 3).

Source: ACCD 2018b, IHACPA 2022.

Source: ACCD 2018b.

Two sets of diabetes codes in ICD-10-AM have been taken into account: diabetes ‘E-codes’ and diabetes in pregnancy ‘O24-codes’. The matrix below shows the method used to assign diabetes in pregnancy status to records from the NHMD, where a record also includes an outcome of delivery code (Z37) (Table 4).

The method uses a hierarchy, whereby a record with any E-code is assigned to pre-existing diabetes in pregnancy status first and the remaining records are assigned a status based on the diabetes in pregnancy O24-codes. Gestational diabetes is only assigned where an O24.4 code exists in the absence of any E-code.

Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) codes are used in this report to classify medicines. This classification groups medicines according to the body organ or system they act upon, their therapeutic characteristics, and their chemical characteristics.

A list of the medicine groups included in this report is shown in Table 5.

More information on the ATC classification system can be found at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology.

ACCD (Australian Consortium for Classification Development) (2018a) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision, Australian Modification (ICD-10-AM) –11th edition,  tabular list of diseases and alphabetic index of diseases,  Adelaide: Independent Hospital Pricing Authority.

ACCD (2018b) Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI) – 11th edition, tabular list of interventions, and alphabetic index of interventions, Adelaide: Independent Hospital Pricing Authority.

WHO (World Health Organization) (2019) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision (ICD-10), Geneva: WHO.