Introduction

Information on organisations funded by the Australian Government under its Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme (IAHP) to provide primary health care services to First Nations people is available through 2 data collections, the Online Services Report (OSR) and the national Key Performance Indicators (nKPI):

  • the OSR is conducted once each financial year (1 July to 30 June) to collect contextual information about the organisations, such as client numbers, client contacts, episodes of care, staffing levels and vacancies
  • the nKPI is conducted twice a year (with census dates at 30 June and 31 December) to collect a set of process-of-care and health-status indicators focused on maternal and child health, preventative health and chronic disease management.

This report presents the latest results from these collections.

Purpose of the OSR and nKPI collections

The main purpose of the OSR and nKPI collections is to support continuous quality improvement (CQI) activity among organisations funded under the IAHP. They can also be used to support policy and service planning at the national and state/territory levels, by monitoring progress and highlighting areas for improvement. In addition to this, information from the collections helps monitor progress against the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Closing the Gap targets, and supports the priorities set out in the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Plan 2021–2031.

Most organisations contribute to both the OSR and nKPI collections (Table 1a to Table 1e).

Table 1a: Number of organisations reporting 2022–23 (OSR)/June 2023 (nKPI) (a)

IAHP funding type

Reporting
to OSR

Reporting
to nKPI

Reporting
to both collections

Primary health care

213

212

194

Maternal and child health(b)

19

21

16

Total

232

233

210

Table 1b: Number of organisations reporting 2021–22 (OSR)/June 2022 (nKPI)(a)

IAHP funding type

Reporting 
 to OSR

Reporting 
 to nKPI

Reporting 
 to both collections

Primary health care

211

209

194

Maternal and child health(b)

19

21

16

Total

230

230

210

Table 1c: Number of organisations reporting 2020–21 (OSR)/June 2021 (nKPI)(a)

IAHP funding type

Reporting 
 to OSR

Reporting 
 to nKPI

Reporting 
 to both collections

Primary health care

191

192

175

Maternal and child health(b)

20

23

18

Total

211

215

193

Table 1d: Number of organisations reporting 2019–20 (OSR)/June 2020 (nKPI)(a)

IAHP funding type

Reporting 
 to OSR

Reporting 
 to nKPI

Reporting 
 to both collections

Primary health care

196

197

182

Maternal and child health(b)

19

23

18

Total

215

220

200

Table 1e: Number of organisations reporting 2018–19 (OSR)/June 2019 (nKPI)(a)

IAHP funding type

Reporting 
 to OSR

Reporting 
 to nKPI

Reporting 
 to both collections

Primary health care

210

213

201

Maternal and child health(b)

22

21

21

Total

232

234

222


  1. Refers to the June collection period for the nKPI and the financial year collection period for the OSR.
  2. Organisations that received funding only to provide maternal and child health programs or services. OSR data presented in this report exclude these organisations unless otherwise noted. For more information see Interpreting OSR data and Interpreting nKPI data. For selected OSR data from these organisations see Data.
  3. Reporting to the collections for these periods was made voluntary in acknowledgement of the additional pressures on organisations because of COVID-19.

Notes

  1. Not all funded organisations report to the collections each period. Organisations may receive an exemption from providing data for a particular period, or may be in-scope to report but do not report for some reason (for example, because reporting was made voluntary for a period).
  2. For information, including on interpreting changes over time, see Technical notes.

Source: OSR and nKPI data collections.

All organisations receiving IAHP funding share a commitment to providing holistic, comprehensive and culturally appropriate health care, and can be split into 2 main types:

  • Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) are initiated and operated by their local Aboriginal communities through locally elected Boards of Management. ACCHOs generally deliver a set of services deemed to be ‘comprehensive health care’.
  • Non-Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (non-ACCHOs) are a mix of government-run organisations (such as local health districts) and non-government organisations (such as not-for-profit charitable health services). Non-ACCHOs may offer a limited or a full range of services.

The 2 types of organisations can have very different profiles (Table 2), varying in governance structure, size, workforce composition, additional sources of funding, the services they offer, and the needs of their clients. Caution should therefore be used when comparing data by organisation type. For more information on interpreting data, see Technical notes and Glossary.

Table 2: Selected results from the OSR collection by organisation type, 2022–23

Measure

ACCHO

Non-ACCHO

Total

Clients (mean)

2,958

1,063

2,379

Clients (median)

2,273

654

1,667

First Nations clients (mean)

2,423

848

1,943

First Nations clients (median)

1,683

534

1,233

Client contacts (mean)

35,170

7,497

26,725

Client contacts (median)

25,073

5,019

15,984

Episodes of care (mean)

22,192

6,566

17,424

Episodes of care (median)

16,180

4,773

11,797

Employed health full time equivalent (FTE) staff (mean)

32

6

24

Employed health full time equivalent (FTE) staff (median)

22

4

12

Total number of organisations

148

65

213

Source: OSR data collection.

Clients

A person is counted as a client once only within an organisation, regardless of how many times they are seen. A client, however, may attend more than one organisation. The extent to which this occurs is not known and is not adjusted for.

OSR

Organisations reporting to the OSR collection may see a mix of First Nations and non-Indigenous clients. Data for both First Nations and non-Indigenous clients are included in the OSR collection. Not all clients included in the OSR collection are regular clients.

The Online Services Report (OSR) collection contains 3 measures related to the clients that organisations see – client numbers, client contacts and episodes of care.

nKPI

Organisations reporting to the nKPI collection may see a mix of First Nations and non-Indigenous clients. Some of these are considered regular clients of the organisation.

For the purposes of the nKPI collection, with the exception of 2 indicators on birthweight, indicators include only First Nations regular clients. This is defined as a First Nations person who attended a particular primary health care organisation at least 3 times in the previous 2 years. The 2 indicators related to birthweight are for babies that have attended the organisation more than once in the previous 12 months.

Indicators that are collected by sex and age only include records where age and sex were recorded.

A count of the overall number of First Nations regular clients (without a sex or age recorded, with a sex recorded but not an age, with an age recorded but not a sex, and with both a sex and age recorded) is also collected.

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