All hospitals and health services in Victoria that provide subacute care inpatient services are required to collect patient care data and report this information to the Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset (VAED).

These subacute care areas (palliative care, rehabilitation, geriatric evaluation and management) had not previously been subject to audit. Following a successful pilot audit conducted by AHA, the Department appointed AHA to conduct the state-wide subacute care data audit program.

The audit program includes site visits to 14 health services over two years to 2018.  Each audit:

• Assessed the validity of data underpinning the health service activity-based funding model
• Validated a range of administrative data items reported to the Department
• Assessed the quality of health services’ record keeping and compliance with the Department’s policies and expectations for information justifying allocation to care types.