Hospital Performance: Costs of acute admitted patients in public hospitals from 2012–13 to 2014–15

Summary

This technical supplement summarises the methods and data sources used to calculate measures presented in Hospital Performance: Costs of acute admitted patients in public hospitals from 2012–13 to 2014–15. It is assumed that readers have technical expertise in the creation and use of health information.

The report compares Australian hospitals based on the costs of acute admitted patients. Admissions (same day and overnight) are weighted to account for the complexity of a patient’s condition(s) and procedure(s) using the Australian Refined–Diagnosis Related Group (AR–DRG) classification system and by adjusting for individual patient characteristics that increase the cost of care for reasons outside the control of hospitals.

This report provides information on the following measure:

• Cost per National Weighted Activity Unit (NWAU), including total NWAU

This measure indicates the relative efficiency of public hospitals by comparing how much money each hospital spent to deliver similar services to similar patients.

Results for more than 100 major, large and medium public hospitals are also available on MyHospitals.