AHA's team of experienced Health Information Managers and Auditors conducted over 140 on-site audits of VAED data reported by Victorian public hospitals and health services.

All public and private hospitals in Victoria (including rehabilitation centres, extended care facilities and day procedure centres) are required to report a minimum set of data for each admitted patient episode. This dataset forms the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED).

VAED data is the cornerstone of the activity-based funding system for acute health services. VAED data are used for health service planning, policy formulation, funding and epidemiological research, among other things. More details are available on the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) website.

AHA was appointed to conduct audits of all Victorian public hospitals and health services, for both acute and mental health patient episodes.

Outcomes of AHA’s hospital audit program include:

• Assessment of the validity of data underpinning the health service activity-based funding model
• Assessment of compliance with the current Victorian Hospital Admission Policy
• Validation of a range of reported administrative data
• Supported quality improvement in patient data reporting by health services.

The audit provided a baseline measure for the Department and health services, as well as the opportunity to identify and redress health-service-specific and system-wide issues that impacted on the quality of patient activity data.

The VAED audit process included:

• Scheduling – Health services were advised at least four weeks in advance of their audit
• Pre-audit – Health services were provided with audit details, including details of the audit sample of episodes and the audit team
• On-site audit – Audits were conducted by experienced AHA auditors and included introduction, conclusion and regular feedback meetings. Health services also had the option to lodge an appeal or complaint
• Reporting – Health services were provided with draft audit report and the opportunity to respond to the report findings and recommendations. Following finalisation of the report, health services were invited to provide feedback about the audit, to assist AHA to continually improve the audit processes.