Definition
The scope of this national minimum data set (NMDS) is patients on waiting lists for elective surgery (as defined in the Elective care waiting list episode—elective care type, code N data element (also referred to by the short name 'Waiting list category') which are managed by public acute hospitals. This will include private patients treated in public hospitals, and may include public patients treated in private hospitals.
Hospitals may also collect information for other care (as defined in the Waiting list category data element), but this is not part of the NMDS for Elective surgery waiting times.
Patients on waiting lists managed by hospitals operated by the Australian Defence Force, corrections authorities and Australia's external territories are not currently included.
Census data:
Data are collected for patients on elective surgery waiting lists who are yet to be admitted to hospital or removed for another reason. The scope is patients on elective surgery waiting lists on a census date who are 'ready for care' and patients who are 'not ready for care', as defined in the Elective surgery waiting list episode—patient listing status, readiness for care code N data element.
There are two different types of data collected for this national minimum data set (census data and removals data) and the scope and list of data elements associated with each is different.
For the purposes of this NMDS, public hospitals include hospitals which are set up to provide services for public patients (as public hospitals do), but which are managed privately.
The inclusion of public patients removed from elective surgery waiting lists managed by private hospitals will be investigated in the future.
Metadata items in this Data Set Specification
Below is a list of all the components within this Dataset Specification.
Each entry includes the item name, whether the item is optional, mandatory or conditional and the maximum times the item can occur in a dataset.
If the items must occur in a particular order in the dataset, the sequence number is included before the item name.
| Reference | Data Element | Data Type | Length | Inclusion | # |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elective care waiting list episode—listing date for care, DDMMYYYY | Date/Time | 8 | mandatory | 1 | |
| Elective surgery waiting list episode—clinical urgency, code N | - | - | mandatory | 1 | |
| Elective surgery waiting list episode—indicator procedure, code NN | String | 2 | mandatory | 1 | |
| Elective surgery waiting list episode—overdue patient status, code N | Number | 1 | mandatory | 1 | |
| Elective surgery waiting list episode—surgical specialty (of scheduled doctor), code NN | - | - | mandatory | 1 | |
| Elective surgery waiting list episode—waiting time (at a census date), total days N[NNN] | Number | 4 | mandatory | 1 | |
| Establishment—organisation identifier (Australian), NNX[X]NNNNN | - | - | mandatory | 1 | |
| Hospital census (of elective surgery waitlist patients)—census date, DDMMYYYY | Date/Time | 8 | mandatory | 1 | |
| Person—Indigenous status, code N | Number | 1 | mandatory | 1 |
Comments
There are two different types of data collected for this national minimum data set (census data and removals data) and the scope and list of data elements associated with each is different.
For the purposes of this NMDS, public hospitals include hospitals which are set up to provide services for public patients (as public hospitals do), but which are managed privately.
The inclusion of public patients removed from elective surgery waiting lists managed by private hospitals will be investigated in the future.
References
Related content
| Relation | Count |
|---|---|
| As a numerator in an Indicator | 0 |
| As a denominator in an Indicator | 0 |
| As a disaggregation in an Indicator | 0 |