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

This page contains general information to aid in interpreting OSR data. Further information relevant to both collections is provided on the main Technical notes page.

In this report, where there are small numbers of reporting organisations in a state or territory, data are presented combined with another state or territory. This is the case for the Australian Capital Territory (presented combined with New South Wales).

Organisational participation and data exclusions

Not all organisations in-scope to report data to the OSR collection do so. This varies by year (Tables 1 and 2).

Note: Includes primary health care organisations and maternal and child health organisations.

Note: Excludes maternal and child health organisations.

For the organisation that do report data, particular data items may be excluded from analysis if data quality issues have not been resolved. Common data quality queries received during data submission relate to incomplete or inaccurate data (for example, workforce positions not reported or reported in terms of the number of people rather than full-time equivalent positions); data discrepancies between two or more questions (for example, the number of clients exceeding the number of episodes of care); and large increases or decreases in data items compared with previous submissions. Where significant data quality issues remain after follow-up with organisations, affected data are excluded from analyses. This varies by year and by data item (Tables 3 and 4).

1. Includes one organisation for which all data items were excluded due to reporting scope issues. As these were not data quality issues, the organisation is not included in the organisations with unresolved issues or the data items excluded for 2013–14.

Note: Includes primary health care organisations and maternal and child health organisations.

1. Includes one organisation for which all data items were excluded due to reporting scope issues. As these were not data quality issues, the organisation is not included in the organisations with unresolved issues or the data items excluded for 2013–14.

Note: Excludes maternal and child health organisations.

Maternal and child health organisations

While a small number of organisations that received funding only for maternal and child health services (MCH organisations) report to the OSR collection, these are excluded from the OSR data presented in this report unless otherwise noted.

MCH organisations reporting to the OSR are significantly different from organisations funded for comprehensive primary health care (PHC), both in the purpose of the funding and, prior to 2018–19, in what they reported in the OSR. For example, MCH organisations are funded only for specific maternal and child health programs (such as those based within a hospital or health service) and only report on their funded program.

Changes to collection content in 2018–19

In 2018–19, the OSR collection underwent significant change and was scaled back to include only ‘core’ items. Items dropped include the substance use and social and emotional wellbeing modules, and the services provided and cultural safety items. Plans are underway to reintroduce key items in a staged approach over the next few years (see the Health Data Portal: Online Services Report).

Also, collections prior to 2018–19 had maternal and child health (MCH) questions in a separate module to preventative health. In 2018–19 these were combined but the data range MCH services were required to report was only focused on what they received MCH funding for, not through all types of preventative health services the health organisation offered.

Changes to episodes of care in 2016–17

While the collection and validation processes for most years have been similar, episodes of care data for 2016–17 are not comparable with other years because changes were made to the types of contacts counted as an episode of care. There were also corrections made to the counting rules used by one clinical information system which did not fully align with the episode of care definition (which had not changed since originally agreed in 2008–09). These led to lower numbers of episodes of care recorded and potential undercounts for some services in 2016–17. In 2017–18, these contact types were again included in the episodes of care count and the extraction issues around episodes of care counts were resolved. This also affected counts of client contacts.