Overview
HIPE - Hospital Inpatient EnquiryHIPE is a health information system which collects administrative and clinical data on every hospital discharge. It is the primary source of acute hospital activity for the health services.
HIPE data comprises demographic data, administrative data and clinical data. Clinical data includes the principal diagnosis and any other relevant secondary diagnoses and any procedures performed. The principal diagnosis and up to 29 secondary diagnoses can be recorded; and 20 procedures can be recorded.
The clinical data is recorded in coded format ICD 10 AM (International Classification of Diseases Australian Modification).
Coding involves extracting the appropriate administrative and medical data from the patient's case notes and converting them into codes.
A HIPE record is, therefore, a collection of codes and the totality of codes used should give an accurate clinical picture of a patient's hospital encounter.
In Ireland currently, we use the 10th revision International Classification of Diseases Australian Modification (ICD 10 AM) for diagnoses and the Australian Classification of Health Interventions (ACHI) for procedures.
Team
Our team consists of a HIPE Casemix Coordinator and clinical coders.Clinical coders collect the HIPE data. They are trained to use a standard coding method based on international codes.
Clinical Coding at Hospital Level
Following is the clinical coding at hospital level:- Medical staff complete a clinical summary upon the patient's discharge.
- Medical notes are sent to the coders.
- Coders review the clinical summary and the medical notes and translate the clinical summary into codes.
- Codes are entered into the HIPE system.
- The software reads the codes and assigns every discharge into a Diagnostic Related Group (DRG).
- Coded cases are exported monthly to the Healthcare Pricing Office (HPO).
- The HPO reviews cases and may return queries.