Final version (3.0)

21 February 2000

NATIONAL HOSPITAL CAPACITY AND PATIENT THROUGHPUT FORM (HA01)

Guidelines for use

Section A

Hospital name

Enter the full hospital name, one character per box.

Province ID

The Province ID is a two digit number, comprising the CCS code for the province.

Month

The month for which the form is completed should be entered in the format MMYYYY.
 

Section B

Specialty

The specialties in this Section have been included to reflect those specialties that could exist in a hospital of your type (central/regional, special or district). Some hospitals will not be able to complete rows for all these specialties, either because they do not separately identify these specialties, or do not provide these services.

For Central and Tertiary Hospitals, Private Hospitals and Military Hospitals (Form HA01C)

Medicine

This specialty may be called internal medicine in your hospital. For the purposes of this form, you should include any other medical specialties or sub-specialties on this row, including any family medicine services you may provide.

Surgery

Surgery should exclude gynaecology and orthopaedics.

Orthopaedics

Beds and patients for this specialty should be separately identified from surgery.

Psychiatry

Beds and patients for this specialty should be separately identified from medicine.

Maternity

Exclude babies born and the beds/cots/incubators used by them.

Gynaecology

Beds and patients for this specialty should be separately identified from surgery and entered on this row. Patients admitted for a planned termination of pregnancy should be included where the termination occurs in the first or second trimester.

Paediatrics

Paediatrics refers to all paediatric patients, i.e. not just medical paediatric patients. Paediatric patients are defined as patients under the age of 13, i.e. up to and including 12 years. You should exclude all well babies who occupy a bed or cot, but you should include all sick babies who occupy an incubator in a special care or neonatal intensive care unit.

Other

The form has been designed so that no entry should be necessary on this row. Please seek advice from your provincial contact if you think you need to make an entry on this row.

For Special Hospitals (Form HA01S)

Specialist paediatric, tuberculosis, maternity or psychiatric hospitals will only complete one specialty row. If your hospital is a special hospital providing special services for another group of patients, please write the specialty of your hospital in the blank box.

For District and Regional Hospitals (Form HA01D)

Tuberculosis

District hospitals that have dedicated tuberculosis wards should complete this row. Where there is no specific facility or ward for tuberculosis, hospitals should include these figures under Medicine.

Medicine

In a district hospital this will essentially comprise adult family medicine. If you have separately recorded figures for Tuberculosis on this form, be sure to exclude tuberculosis from your figures for this row. Psychiatric patients should also be included.

Surgery

Include all adult surgical patients including gynaecology, urology, ophthalmology etc. but excluding paediatric (surgery) patients.

Maternity

Do not include babies born and the beds/cots/incubators used by them. Gynaecology patients should be included under Surgery.

Paediatrics

Paediatrics refers to all paediatric patients, i.e. not just medical paediatric patients. Paediatric patients are defined as under the age of 13, i.e. up to and including 12 years. You should exclude all well babies who occupy a bed or cot, but you should include all sick babies who occupy an incubator in a special care or neonatal intensive care unit.

Other

The form has been designed so that no entry should be necessary on this row. Please seek advice from your provincial contact if you think you need to make an entry on this row.

For All Hospitals

Useable beds

This is defined as "The number of beds that are actually available for use within the facility (regardless of whether they are occupied by a patient or lodger)."

Strictly speaking, this should be calculated by counting the number of useable beds for every day of the month (including weekends) and taking an average. However, for the purpose of this form, it is acceptable to count the number of beds on the last weekday (i.e. not on a weekend) of the month and to report this figure.

On maternity wards, you should only count the beds used by mothers, and exclude beds or cots used by well babies.

Transfers in

The number of "transfers in" is the number of patients directed or physically transferred from other hospitals to the wards in your hospital. Do not include referrals from clinics or Community Health Centres.

Day patients

Day patients are patients admitted and discharged from the hospital on the same day, i.e. do not occupy a bed at midnight. This will include surgical patients admitted intentionally for a day procedure, and medical patients. All admitted patients who die on their first day of admission should not be counted as a day patients but as an inpatient death.

Inpatient outcomes

The following 4 columns all relate to inpatients (i.e. patients who stay over midnight) and exclude day patients (i.e. patient who do not stay over midnight). It is important to exclude day patients from the inpatient days and inpatient discharges figures.

Inpatient days

The number of inpatient days is the number of days spent in the institution for all patients occupying a bed during the month. A day is measured at midnight, and the day of discharge is not counted as an extra day.

This means that a patient admitted today and discharged tomorrow will have one patient day. Day patients will have zero patient days as they do not stay past midnight and must not be included in the total monthly count.

Lodgers (and lodger days) must not be included in this count. A patient on leave at midnight is not counted as a patient day.

Inpatient discharges

Discharge is the process by which a patient completes a hospital stay. In this column, total inpatient discharges must be shown. You must exclude transfers out (i.e. to another hospital) and deaths from this figure.

Note that this column only refers to discharges for inpatients, i.e. for patients who have at least one midnight stay, and you should exclude patient discharges for day patients (who are admitted and discharged on the same day).

Deaths

These are deaths of patients admitted to the hospital, either as an inpatient or as a day patient. You must exclude deaths on arrival, and deaths in the casualty department, as these patients were not formally admitted to the hospital.

Transfers out

The number of transfers out is the number of patients directed or physically transferred to other hospitals from the wards in your hospital. Patients transferred out must not be recorded as an inpatient discharge. Do not include referrals back to clinics or Community Health Centres.

Hospital total

These figures are the total beds and patient throughput in your hospital for this month. The other rows you have completed in this section must add up to this row.
 

Section C

Normal deliveries

The total number of normal deliveries in the month. A normal delivery is an unassisted vaginal delivery and you should include vaginal breech deliveries on this row.

Assisted Deliveries

An assisted delivery is a vaginal delivery using an instrument, including forceps, rotations, and vacuum extractions (for births only, i.e. not for planned abortions).

Caesarean deliveries

A Caesarean Delivery is the removal of the fetus, placenta and membranes by means of an incision through the abdominal and uterine walls. You should include both Caesarean sections in labour and Caesarean sections with no labour (also known as an elective Caesarean section).

Total deliveries

The total number of deliveries is the total number of women who delivered a birth during the month. Note that this can be less than the number of total births if multiple births (twins, triplets etc.) occur in the month.

Live births

The total number of live births is the number of complete expulsions or extractions from the mother of products of conception, irrespective of the duration of the pregnancy, which, after such separation, breathe or show any other evidence of life. This can be the beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached.

Still births

A still birth is death prior to the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy; the death is indicated by the fact that after such separation the fetus does not breathe or show any evidence of life, such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of the involuntary muscles. Still births should only be counted when the fetus is of 26 or more weeks gestational age and/or weighs 500g or more.

Total births

The total number of births is the total number of babies born, regardless of whether the baby was live or still born, during the month. Note that this can be greater than total deliveries if multiple births (twins, triplets etc.) occur.

Early neonatal deaths

Early neonatal deaths in the month are all live births with a birth weight of 500g or more who died within 7 days of birth.
 

Section D

Outpatient department

An outpatient department is a physical area in a hospital in which patients presenting with a condition are seen by health care professionals such as medical officers, nurses and midwives.

For Forms HA01C and HA01P (i.e. central, tertiary and private hospitals), the outpatient department is split between general and specialist clinics. Specialist clinics are those clinics supervised by a specialist medical officer.

Casualty department

A casualty department is an area for the treatment of patients with conditions requiring emergency treatment. It may be either a major unit providing 24 hour services 7 days a week, or a smaller unit providing services for limited hours.

Total headcount

The total headcount for a clinic is the number of patients who attended the clinic and were registered for treatment.
 

Section E

It is essential that the form is completed and authorised by responsible individuals. It is intended that Chief Executive/ Medical Superintendent assures him/herself of the accuracy of the completed form, and authorises its submission to the provincial office.

Submitting the completed form

Hospitals must submit their completed forms to the Provinicial Health Department by the agreed deadline. This will vary from province to province. The Province must then check and forward the forms to the national department. The Provincial Department must submit April’s form by the 15th of June, May’s form by the 15th of July and so on.


National Department of Health