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Definition

The scope of this DSS is emergency care provided in emergency departments in activity based funded hospitals.

These emergency departments are purposely designed and equipped areas with designated assessment, treatment and resuscitation areas and can provide resuscitation, stabilisation and initial management of all emergencies. They also have medical staff available in the hospital 24 hours a day and designated emergency department nursing staff and nursing unit manager 24 hours per day 7 days per week.

The scope also includes services where a patient is awaiting transit, had a pre-arranged admission, did-not-wait or died on arrival. Patients with Department of Veterans' Affairs or compensable funding source are also included in the scope of the collection.

The care provided to patients in emergency departments is, in most instances, recognised as being provided to non-admitted patients. Patients being treated in emergency departments may subsequently become admitted. The care provided to non-admitted patients who are treated in the emergency department prior to being admitted is included in this DSS.

Care provided to patients who are being treated in an emergency department site as an admitted patient (e.g. in an observation unit, short-stay unit, 'emergency department ward' or awaiting a bed in an admitted patient ward of the hospital) are excluded from the scope.

Also excluded from the scope are patients in General Practitioner co-located units.

Scope links with other metadata sets

Episodes of care for admitted patients are reported through the Admitted patient care NMDS.

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.


Data Elements
Reference Data Element Data Type Length Inclusion #
Address: Australian Postcode, (Postcode datafile) NNNN Number 4 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—additional diagnosis, code X(18)
Conditional Inclusion:
Only required to be reported when an additional diagnosis was present for the emergency department stay.
- - conditional 2
Emergency department stay—diagnosis classification type, code N.N
Conditional Inclusion:
Only required to be reported when a principal diagnosis and/or an additional diagnosis has been reported.
- - conditional 1
Emergency department stay—physical departure date, DDMMYYYY Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—physical departure time, hhmm Date/Time 4 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—presentation date, DDMMYYYY Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—presentation time, hhmm Date/Time 4 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—principal diagnosis, code X(18)
Conditional Inclusion:

The reporting of this data element is optional for those attendances where the emergency department principal diagnosis is not likely to be ascertained for patients who:

  • Did not wait
  • Dead on arrival
  • Left the Emergency Department - treatment not complete.
String 18 conditional 1
Emergency department stay—transport mode (arrival), code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—type of visit to emergency department, code N - - mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—urgency related group major diagnostic block, code N[AA] String 3 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—urgency related group, URG code [X]N[N] String 3 mandatory 1
Emergency department stay—waiting time (to commencement of clinical care), total minutes NNNNN
Conditional Inclusion:

This data item is to be recorded if the patient has one of the following Episode end status values recorded:

  • Admitted to this hospital (either short stay unit, hospital in the home or non-emergency department hospital ward);
  • Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode completed—departed without being admitted or referred to another hospital;
  • Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode completed—referred to another hospital for admission;
  • Left at own risk after being attended by a health care professional but before the non-admitted patient emergency department service episode was completed;
  • Died in emergency department as a non-admitted patient;
  • Dead on arrival, emergency department clinician certified the death of the patient
Number 5 conditional 1
Episode of care—funding eligibility indicator (Department of Veterans' Affairs), code N - - mandatory 1
Establishment—organisation identifier (Australian), NNX[X]NNNNN - - mandatory 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—clinical care commencement date, DDMMYYYY
Conditional Inclusion:

This data item is to be recorded if the patient has one of the following Episode end status values recorded:

  • Admitted to this hospital (either short stay unit, hospital in the home or non-emergency department hospital ward);
  • Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode completed—departed without being admitted or referred to another hospital;
  • Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode completed—referred to another hospital for admission;
  • Left at own risk after being attended by a health care professional but before the non-admitted patient emergency department service episode was completed;
  • Died in emergency department as a non-admitted patient;
  • Dead on arrival, emergency department clinician certified the death of the patient
Date/Time 8 conditional 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—clinical care commencement time, hhmm
Conditional Inclusion:

This data item is to be recorded if the patient has one of the following Episode end status values recorded:

  • Admitted to this hospital (either short stay unit, hospital in the home or non-emergency department hospital ward);
  • Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode completed—departed without being admitted or referred to another hospital;
  • Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode completed—referred to another hospital for admission;
  • Left at own risk after being attended by a health care professional but before the non-admitted patient emergency department service episode was completed;
  • Died in emergency department as a non-admitted patient;
  • Dead on arrival, emergency department clinician certified the death of the patient
Date/Time 4 conditional 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—episode end date, DDMMYYYY Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—episode end status, code N - - mandatory 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—episode end time, hhmm Date/Time 4 mandatory 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—service episode length, total minutes NNNNN Number 5 mandatory 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—triage category, code N
Conditional Inclusion:

This data item is to be recorded for patients who have one of the following Type of visit values recorded:

  • Emergency department presentation;
  • Return visit, planned;
  • Pre-arranged admission;
  • Patient in transit.
Number 1 conditional 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—triage date, DDMMYYYY
Conditional Inclusion:

This data item is to be recorded for patients who have one of the following Type of visit values recorded:

  • Emergency department presentation;
  • Return visit, planned;
  • Pre-arranged admission;
  • Patient in transit.
Date/Time 8 conditional 1
Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—triage time, hhmm
Conditional Inclusion:

This data item is to be recorded for patients who have one of the following Type of visit values recorded:

  • Emergency department presentation;
  • Return visit, planned;
  • Pre-arranged admission;
  • Patient in transit.
Date/Time 4 conditional 1
Patient—compensable status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—area of usual residence, geographical location code (ASGC 2011) NNNNN - - mandatory 1
Person—area of usual residence, statistical area level 2 (SA2) code (ASGS 2011) N(9) String 9 mandatory 1
Person: Country of Birth, Code (SACC 2011) NNNN Number 4 mandatory 1
Person: Date of Birth, DDMMYYYY Date/Time 8 mandatory 1
Person—Indigenous status, code N Number 1 mandatory 1
Person—person identifier, XXXXXX[X(14)] - - mandatory 1
Person: Sex, Code N Number 1 mandatory 1

Comments

Comments:

Scope links with other metadata sets

Episodes of care for admitted patients are reported through the Admitted patient care NMDS.

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