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Future Directions
The NSW Public Hospital Comparison Data Book is a report on performance by the NSW public health system. The publication has also evolved into a highly credible set of measures of the efficiency and to a lesser extent, effectiveness of the NSW public health system. As the priorities of the NSW public health system change, so must the range of measures change in the Data Book.
While the combination of activity measures and costs contained in this publication continues to become more accurate in measuring efficiency and productivity, it is becoming more of a priority to measure the effectiveness of the public health system in maximising the health of the people of NSW.
The NSW Public Hospital Comparison Data Book helps us to measure our performance in achieving the goals as stated in Strategic Directions for Health 1998 - 2003 of “Better health, good health care”. As stated in that document “ We cannot stand still in health. Too much is changing: emerging health risks and new disease, new research findings that we need to put into practice, social and demographic change such as our ageing population, changing expectations of patients, clients and the community, new technology, the information superhighway and legislative and organisational change.” This publication is developing in the following ways to accommodate changing requirements:
Casemix Measures
To include more casemix measures this year, the casemix information, which now draws data from the Hospital Cost Data Collection and not just the Inpatient Statistics Collection is being published in a separate volume.In the future different measures may be incorporated including Area based measures (where they are valid and reliable) to supplement hospital based measures. This will become especially relevant as more services are delivered to community based patients and clients on an Area basis where previously they were delivered to inpatients in public hospitals.
As ambulatory care information systems become capable of supplying more finely granulated activity and cost information for non inpatient services, measures based on such systems will appear in the NSW Public Hospitals Comparison Data Book.
Community Based Activity
There is a recognised need to highlight community based activity as well as inpatient data. In program areas like Mental Health and others there has been a strong move towards community based care which will be reflected in future editions of the Data Book.National Survey of Mental Health Services
The Centre for Mental Health had planned to include in the 1997-98 edition, a mental health supplement based on the National Survey of Mental Health Services. However, for a variety of reasons, including delays completing the national process for data verification, this objective has not been achieved this year, but the integration of the survey will be a priority for the 1998-99 edition.
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