The NSW Combined Admitted Patient Epidemiology Data

The NSW Combined Admitted Patient Epidemiology Data (CAPED) records all inpatient separations (e.g. discharges, transfers and deaths) from all public, private, psychiatric and repatriation hospitals in NSW, as well as public multi-purpose services, private day procedure centres and public nursing homes. The CAPED includes data on hospital admissions of NSW residents which occurred in public hospitals interstate.

In CAPED, public hospital data are recorded in terms of episodes of care. An 'episode of care' ends with the patient ending a period of stay in hospital (e.g. by discharge, transfer or death) or by becoming a different 'type' of patient within the same period of stay. For private hospitals, each CAPED record represents a complete hospital stay. CAPED records are counted based on the date of separation (discharge) from hospital.

Imputation of interstate admissions in recent data

Data from interstate hospitals for recent years may not yet be available when the data are analysed for publication. This may affect analyses and has a greater effect on rates for areas closer to an interstate boundary. Analyses by geographical regions and analyses involving uncommon diagnoses or procedures are particularly affected. Therefore, an estimate is made of interstate admissions for recent years of hospitalisations based on interstate admissions in the most recent year for which interstate data are available. Interstate admissions records from the most recent year for which interstate data are available are copied into the file for the most recent years, assuming that the attributes of these admissions (such as sex, age, geography, type of diagnosis or procedure) provide the best predictor of those for admissions in the recent years.