Data sources

NSW Health publishes a range of data from different sources. Sources of data collected and used by NSW Health include administrative data (such as emergency department and hospital data), registry data (such as deaths data), surveys data and programs data.

List of data sources

• Deaths data
  Deaths data refers to information collected on deaths in NSW, including demographic information on the deceased person, date and location of death and underlying cause of death.
• Emergency department data
  Emergency department data refers to information collected on a person's visit to a NSW public emergency department.
• Hospital data
  Hospital data refers to information collected on a person's stay in hospital (including patient services provided by NSW public hospitals, public psychiatric hospitals, multi-purpose services, private hospitals, and private day procedure centres).
• Perinatal data
  Perinatal data refers to information collected around the time of birth and includes information on NSW mothers and babies.
• Programs data
  Programs data refers to information collected from NSW Health programs aimed at improving the health of NSW residents, such as the Get Healthy Information and Coaching Service and Go4Fun.
• Surveys data
  Surveys data is information collected on a sample of the population participating in a survey, and captures self-reported information on health status, health behaviours and attitudes.

Linked data

Linked data is information brought together from different data sources relating to the same individual, family, place or event. Record linkage allows a more complete picture of the health of the population, and can be used for health research, policy development and service planning across the population.

The Centre for Health Record Linkage (CHeReL) securely brings together information from different databases at hospitals, health departments and other organisations providing health care in NSW and the ACT.

Linkage of health-related data needs to be in accordance with all ethical, legal, privacy and confidentiality requirements.