Page 1724 - Week 06 - Thursday, 13 August 1992
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MINISTER FOR HEALTH
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY QUESTION
QUESTION 181
Woden Valley Hospital - Case-Mix Index
Mrs Carnell - asked the Arrester for Health:
1. Has the case-mix profile of Woden Valley Hospital been examined, using the
ACT Hospital Morbidity Data Collection, to see whether the profile of this hospital looks
more like a Type 1 hospital than the Type 2 status it currently has; if not, why not?
2. Has any other method or data set been used to examine if Woden Valley
represents a Type 1 hospital ; if not, why not?
Mr Berry - the answer to Mrs Carnells questions are:
1. The issue of whether Woden Valley Hospital is a Type 1 or Type 2 hospital.is of principal importance in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfares Hospital Costs and Utilisation-Studies (HUGS). The Grants Commission also uses data from these studies in making its assessments of State relativities.
A Type 1 hospital is essentially a teaching hospital, while a Type 2 hospital is a general hospital which has a significant range of specialities and a large range of type of cases orated.
As part of the development of its submission to the Fourth Inquiry Into ACT Finances, my Department examined the case-mix complexity of both Woden Valley Hospital and Royal Canberra Hospital on the latest data available at that time from the Morbidity Data Collection, and compared them to Type 1 and Type 2 hospitals in NSW. It found that the case-mix index of both hospitals was around the average of NSW Type 2 hospitals and well below the range of NSW Type 1 hospitals.
Similarly, a consultants report commissioned in 1991 on some aspects of hospital budgeting systems concluded that the case-mix index at Woden Valley Hospital/Royal Canberra Hospital was below that of the average of Australian teaching hospitals.
2. No. Case-mix complexity indices are the most objective means of providing a guide to the relative classifications of hospitals.
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