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Foreword
The purpose of the NSW Public Hospitals Comparison Data Book is to inform the people of NSW about the nature of services provided to them by NSW public hospitals, the efficiency and effectiveness with which hospitals have used resources to provide those services and the kinds of health issues that were addressed.
There are important improvements in the 1997/98 Hospital Comparison Data Book which reflect a greater emphasis on indicators of the quality of health care, following from The Framework for Managing the Quality of Health Services in NSW. As new health care quality indicators are developed, suitable ones will progressively be incorporated into the NSW Public Hospitals Comparison Data Book. The 1997/98 edition commences that process with the re-ordering of existing measures around the six dimensions identified in the framework: safety, access, appropriateness, efficiency, effectiveness and consumer participation.
NSW Health is one of the largest enterprises in Australia, with a budget of over $6.2 billion. There are 237 hospitals and related institutions and many more community based centres through which services are delivered. In 1997-98, 1.33 million inpatients were treated in NSW public hospitals and a further 17.7 million encounters with clients occurred on a community or outpatient basis.
The services provided through NSW Health range from the most complex types of procedures which push the boundaries of technology and science, to simple but valuable services provided to people in their homes to assist their health related quality of life and independence.
The NSW Public Hospitals Comparison Data Book has evolved as an important mechanism for conveying key information on public hospitals to the public. This year’s publication represents further progress in the direction of accountability and transparency. This publication contains information of interest to members of the public, the academic community, other government agencies, health service managers, health service planners and clinicians.
Growth in the amount of information made available in the 1997/98 edition has meant the publication format and presentation has been changed. Two volumes of the Hospital Comparison Data Book will be published.
Volume One - Service Activity and Comparative Performance Indicators will include information on activity, costs and performance for acute and non-acute public hospitals, grouped by the hospital peer groups. The information is organised to allow users to view summary information for NSW as a whole, information classified by peer group and then by individual hospital.
Volume Two - Casemix Information will describe in detail the mix and type of patients treated by public hospitals, and their costs. Volume Two will also include an overview of services provided aggregated to the Area Health Service level. Volume Two will be published in the next few months.
Significant efforts have been made in the 1997/98 edition to improve data quality. Preliminary information was reviewed by the Casemix Area Network which includes Area Health Service staff responsible for casemix issues. Information was also fed back to Areas for review and comment prior to publication.
A major improvement from previous years has been the incorporation of Hospital Cost Data Collection data to supplement information from the Unaudited Annual Return. The Hospital Cost Data Collection collects data from the 79 largest public hospitals in NSW, on the costs of patients by each AN-DRG. Incorporation of this information has resulted in a more accurate and reliable measure of hospital costs.
I extend my own personal thanks to all who have been involved in preparing this year’s edition. The improvements reflect their efforts.
The Department is keen to ensure that key publications meet the needs of readers. For this reason, we are again inviting comments. These can be forwarded to the Director, Information Management and Clinical Systems whose contact details are provided.
Michael Reid
Director General
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