Summary

The National Health Data Dictionary (NHDD) is the authoritative source of information about endorsed national metadata standards for the health sector, and provides the basis for consistent national collection and reporting.

The NHDD version 16.2 contains national standards that were approved between July 2013 and the end of June 2014. It follows the publication of NHDD version 16.1 which reflected changes to the national health data standards between May 2012 and June 2013. The NHDD version 16.1 is available on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW’s) website.

Within the NHDD version 16.2, the national standards have been grouped into the following categories:

  • data elements
  • national minimum data set specifications
  • data set specifications
  • data element clusters
  • supporting metadata items:
    • object classes
    • properties
    • classification schemes
    • glossary items.

The standards have been endorsed by the National Health Information and Performance
Principal Committee (NHIPPC) for inclusion in the data dictionary. Further information
about the committee governance process can be found in the ‘Governance’ section later in this chapter.

The standards are also available on METEOR, the AIHW’s online metadata registry.