Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander specific primary health care: results from the OSR and nKPI collections

albumin/creatinine ratio (ACR): A measure of renal function that assesses albumin in the urine.

allied health professionals: In the OSR collection, this includes professionals working as an audiologist/audiometrist, diabetes educator, dietitian, optometrist, pharmacist, physiotherapist, podiatrist, speech pathologist and ‘other’ allied health professionals not already specified.

AUDIT-C: An Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test screening tool, which is sensitive to the early detection of risky and high-risk (or hazardous and harmful) drinking.

birthweight: The first weight of a baby obtained after birth. Only live births are included.

body mass index (BMI): A measure of an adult’s weight (body mass) relative to height, used to assess the extent of weight deficit or excess, where height and weight have been measured. BMI is the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in metres.

cardiovascular disease (CVD): Any disease of the circulatory system, namely the heart (cardio) or blood vessels (vascular).

clients: Individuals who received health care from an organisation during the period. For the Online Services Report (OSR) collection, this refers to First Nations and non-Indigenous clients. For the national Key Performance Indicators (nKPI), this refers to only First Nations regular clients. Each individual is counted once only within an organisation, regardless of how many times they are seen. See also Clients in Technical notes.

client contact: In the OSR collection, this refers to a count of the contacts between clients and each type of health worker in an organisation (both employed and visiting health staff) and includes those made by drivers and field officers (transport contacts). Client contacts do not include administrative contacts or those relating to groups and residential care. See also Clients in Technical notes.

clinical information system(s) (CIS): A computer system used to manage client records.

employed FTE staff: In the OSR collection, this refers to full-time equivalent staff an organisation paid the wages or salary for at 30 June each collection period.

episodes of care: In the OSR collection, an episode of care is a contact between a client and one or more health workers in an organisation in one calendar day. All contacts with the same client on the same day are counted as one episode of care only, but if more than one health worker sees that client in the same day (for example, both a nurse and doctor see the same client) then one episode of care will count as multiple client contacts . In the OSR collection, an episode of care may be provided by employed or visiting health staff, either on site or off site, and includes outreach, hospital contact with clients, telephone contacts of a clinical nature, care delivered over the phone which results in an update to a client’s record and other clinical consultations. Episodes of care do not include administrative contacts or those relating to groups and residential care. See also Clients in Technical notes.

estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR): A measure of how well the kidneys filter waste from the blood.

first antenatal visit: The contact at which the initial antenatal check-ups are done, for example, to confirm pregnancy, establish history, and conduct blood tests.

First Nations regular client: In the nKPI collection, this refers to First Nations people who are regular clients of a reporting organisation.

full-time equivalent (FTE) staff: FTE is a standard measure of the size of a workforce that takes into account both the number of workers and the hours that each works. For example, if a workforce comprises 2 people working full-time 40 hours a week and 2 working half-time, this is the same as 3 working full-time (an FTE of 3).

HbA1c (haemoglobin A1c or glycated haemoglobin): A measurement that acts as an indicator of time-averaged blood glucose levels (over the previous 2 to 3 months).

health staff: In the OSR collection, the following positions are counted as ‘health’ staff in this report: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers (AHW); Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners (AHP); doctors/general practitioner (GPs); nurses and midwives; substance misuse and drug and alcohol workers; tobacco workers and coordinators; dentists or dental therapists; dental support workers; sexual health workers; outreach workers; traditional healers; environmental health workers and officers; medical specialists; social and emotional wellbeing staff and counsellors; allied health professionals; health promotion or prevention workers; training or trainee health positions; other health workers (not reported elsewhere).

influenza: An acute contagious viral respiratory infection marked by fever, muscle aches, headache, cough, and sore throat.

linear trend: A linear trendline is used to show if something is increasing or decreasing at a steady rate. It uses the least squares method to seek the slope and intercept coefficients such that: y = bx + a, where b is the slope of a trendline and a is the y-intercept (which is the expected mean value of y when all x variables are equal to 0). The R-squared value measures the trendline reliability – generally the nearer R-squared is to 1, the better the trendline fits the data (noting, however, that small R-squared values are not always a problem, and high R-squared values are not always good). R-squared is the percentage of the dependent variable variation that a linear model explains. The trend lines in the data visualisations in this report provide a general impression of the direction of the data. Caution should be taken interpreting trends with less than 5 data points.

mean: Average of a group of numbers.

median: Midpoint of a list of observations ranked from smallest to largest.

medical specialists: In the OSR collection, this refers to medical practitioners who are registered as specialists under a law of state or territory or recognised as specialists or consultant physicians by a specialist recognition advisory committee, such as paediatricians, ophthalmologists, cardiologists, ear, nose and throat specialists, obstetricians and surgeons.

other staff: In this report, the following positions are counted as ‘other’ staff: chief executive officers (CEOs); managers and supervisors; drivers and field officers; finance and accounting staff; administrative and clerical staff; information technology (IT) and data management staff; cleaners, security and other support staff; administrative and support trainees.

regular client: In the nKPI collection, this refers to a client who has visited a particular primary health care provider 3 or more times in the previous 2 years.

service delivery site: In the OSR collection, this refers to all service delivery sites owned, leased or otherwise controlled by an organisation. It does not include outlets or sites only visited by mobile services.

social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) staff: In the OSR collection, these include (but are not limited to) psychologists, counsellors, mental health workers, social workers and welfare workers.

type 2 diabetes: The most common form of diabetes, occurring mostly in people aged 40 or over, and marked by reduced or less effective insulin.

vacant FTE positions: In the OSR collection, this refers to full-time equivalent positions that are vacant as at 30 June each collection period.

visiting FTE staff: In the OSR collection, this refers to the full-time equivalent staff who worked for, but were not paid for, by an organisation during the collection period.