Notes
Data quality statements
National Hospital Morbidity Database
The NHMD is a compilation of episode-level records from admitted patient morbidity data collection systems in Australian hospitals. The data supplied are based on the Admitted Patient Care National Minimum Data Set (NMDS), and include demographic, administrative, and length-of-stay data, as well as data on the diagnoses of the patients, the procedures they underwent in hospital, and external causes of injury and poisoning.
The Admitted Patient Care NMDS aims to collect information about care provided to admitted patients in Australian hospitals. In scope are episodes of care for admitted patients in all public and private acute and psychiatric hospitals, free-standing day hospital facilities, and alcohol and drug treatment centres in Australia.
Hospitals operated by the Australian Defence Force, corrections authorities, and in Australia’s offshore territories are not in scope, but some are included.
The data set includes records for admitted patient separations between 1 July 2011 and 30 June 2016. A complete data quality statement for the NHMD is available online at the National Hospitals Data Collection page.
National Coronial Information System
The NCIS is an internet accessible data storage and retrieval system for Australian and New Zealand coronial cases. It enables coroners, their staff, public sector agencies, researchers, and other agencies to access coronial data to inform death and injury prevention activities.
It contains data about deaths reported to an Australian coroner from July 2000 (or January 2001 in the case of Queensland data), and to a New Zealand coroner from July 2007 (closed cases only), and is an initiative of the Australasian Coroners Society.
The NCIS is managed by the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety on behalf of a Board of Management, and is based at the Coronial Services Centre in Southbank, Victoria.
The data entered into the NCIS are collected from source material, such as the police report of death, autopsy reports, toxicology reports, and coronial findings from 9 jurisdictions, including the 8 Australian states and territories and New Zealand.
The Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety advise that the quality and consistency of these documents might vary between and within each jurisdiction. There are also differences between jurisdictions as to legislation governing the reporting of a death to a coroner, which can affect the type, quality, and quantity of the information collected and reported by each jurisdiction. These differences will have an impact on the information available in the NCIS.