Data collection
In order for activity based funding to be effective, each patient episode needs to be counted. This includes inpatient admissions, emergency department presentations and outpatient appointments as well as a range of mental health and rehabilitation services.
The Data Acquisition team at the Independent Health and Aged Care Pricing Authority (IHACPA) works with states and territories to develop appropriate data specifications, and to acquire, validate and maintain data in the IHACPA information technology environment.
Activity based funding quarterly activity data submission
The purpose of the activity based funding quarterly activity data submission is to collect information about various kinds of patient services provided by Australian hospitals, to input into the in the activity based funding process. Currently, IHACPA collects activity data for 10 data streams, including:
- admitted acute
- admitted subacute and non-acute
- non-admitted services (aggregated data)
- non-admitted services (patient-level data)
- emergency (aggregated data)
- emergency (patient-level data)
- mental health care
- sentinel events
- teaching, training and research
- alternative funding source.
Jurisdictions are required to submit activity data to IHACPA on a quarterly basis and teaching, training and research data on an annual basis. The activity based funding activity data is submitted through the IHACPA data portal.
National Hospital Cost Data Collection
Hospital cost and expenditure data, collected through the National Hospital Cost Data Collection, are used as another important input in the activity based funding process. Jurisdictions are required to submit cost data to IHACPA on an annual basis. The cost data is submitted via the IHACPA data portal with supplied credentials.
Online data cube
The National Benchmarking Portal is a secure web based application that provides access to compare costs and activity data from public hospitals across the country.