- Acknowledgements
- Executive Summary
- 1. Introduction
2. Valuation Methodology- 3. Incidence of Foodborne Illness, Health Care and Lost Productivity
- 4. Health Care Service Costs
- 5. Cost of Surveillance and Control of Foodborne Illness8
- 6. Health Costs Borne by Businesses and Households
- 7. Industry Costs
- 8. Total Annual Cost of Foodborne Illness
- Appendix A: Epidemiological Data
Appendix B: Sources of Data for Costing Health Care Services- Appendix C: Cost of Foodborne Illness: Results From the Australia New Zealand Food Authority and Applied Economics
- Abbreviations
- References
The Annual Cost of Foodborne Illness in Australia
B1. Hospital Data
Hospital data were extracted from the AIHW’s National Hospital Morbidity Database as described in Chapter 4. The AIHW databases were also interrogated to identify the relevant ICD-10-AM codes and DRG codes for the disease.
Hospital cost data were extracted as DRG costs from the National Hospital Cost Database Collection Round 6 (2001-02) as published on the website of the Casemix Branch of the DoHA. The DRG patient classification system groups patient episodes that use similar resources in a clinically meaningful way. The average cost of all 661 codes provides a reference value with a weight of one, against which all other DRG average costs may be compared. The DRG average cost provides a value based on actual resource consumption and the national DRG costs, used in this study, includes all outliers. The website address is <http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/content/casemix-1>.
The identification of the hospital cost parameter for each illness required the interrogation of a number of disease classification systems. Firstly, each disease was identified by its ICD-10-AM code, for instance AO9 for diarrhoea and gastroenteritis. The AIHW website provides a search facility for this purpose. These codes are grouped into 23 Major Diagnostic Categories, which are organised by body system. For example, Chapter VI contains Diseases and Disorders of the Digestive System. These codes are the basis of the DRG system. The DoHA Casemix site was interrogated to identify the relevant Major Diagnostic Categories and then the relevant DRG codes. The actual DRG costs and cost weights for 2001-02 were found in the appendix to the Round 6 (2001-02) report.
It was possible to classify the ICD-10-AM codes to a number of DRGs, usually adjacent, and so reflect variations in levels of severity and therapeutic intervention. In the absence of detailed utilisation data, it was necessary to make assumptions about the likelihood of case classification to particular DRGs. In general, we used ALOS to identify the relevant DRG. The potential DRGs, the selected cost parameter and the instances of deviations from the ALOS assumption are presented in Chapter 4.
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