Factsheet: Short stay emergency department events

This factsheet is targeted at users of hospital data from the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS).

When looking at data from the NMDS, such as hospitalisations for certain diagnoses, it is important to consider short stay emergency department events. From July 1999 to June 2012, DHBs had differing admission practices, which resulted in differences in the data reported. From 1 July 2012, all DHBs were reporting short stay emergency department events consistently. Therefore excluding these events from analyses of hospital data for the years prior to 2012/13 is recommended.

It is evident from the figure below that short stay emergency department events were reported inconsistently over time and by different DHBs. By excluding the data that is inconsistently reported, the remaining data can be used to make meaningful comparisons across years and DHBs. This exclusion method is used in the analysis of intentional self-harm hospitalisations in the annual Suicide Facts publication. The method of exclusion is described further in the notes below.

Figure 1: Comparing the number of short stay emergency department events for four example DHBs, 1995/96–2012/13

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Excluding short stay emergency department events has different effects on the data depending on the cause of the hospitalisation.

For example, there was greater variation in short stay emergency department reporting for intentional self-harm hospitalisations compared to asthma hospitalisations from 2000/01 to 2012/13 (Figure 2). It is important to bear this in mind when analysing hospital information.

Figure 2: Comparison of short stay emergency department hospitalisations by certain causes, 2000/01–2012/13

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