Background
The Medical Indemnity National Collection (Public Sector) was established in 2003 to report nationally on public sector medical indemnity claims. These are claims for compensation for harm or other loss allegedly due to the delivery of health care covered by public sector medical indemnity insurers.
Further information on medical indemnity claims and the Medical Indemnity National Collection (MINC) can be found at http://meteor.aihw.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/329638.
The cubes
The cubes contain public sector medical indemnity claims data for the years between 2003−04 and 2012–13.
Data for Western Australia are excluded because Western Australia has withdrawn from the MINC. The data from Australia's other jurisdictions are updated not only for 2012–13 but also for previous years.
The two MINC data cubes should be used in conjunction with the Australia's medical indemnity claims 2012-13 report published in 2014. The data cubes supplement the main tables in chapters 3 and 4 of the report, but the report also contains additional information not covered by the data cubes. The two cubes are:
Note: Cubes open in new window.
The first cube provides information on claims in the year that that their reserve was set, including their reserve amount. The second cube provides information on claims in the year that they were closed, including the size of the claim.
The values (measures) in the data cubes are:
- Number of claims
- Months of claim duration (months between when the reserve was set and the claim was closed for closed claims, or between when the reserve was set and 30 June 2013 for claims still open on 30 June 2013).
The data items (dimensions) in the data cubes are:
| Data item |
Explanation |
| Year reserve set |
For the cubes showing data for claims in the year they were opened, financial year in which a reserve was first placed against the claim. |
| Size of reserve |
For the cubes showing data for claims in the year they were opened, the reserve set against the estimated total cost of closing the claim, recorded in broad dollar ranges. |
| Status of claim |
For the cubes showing data for claims in the year they were opened, an indication of whether the claim is potential, commenced, reopened or closed at 30 June 2013. |
| Year claim closed |
For the cubes showing data for claims in the year they were closed, financial year in which the claim file was closed. |
| Cost of closing claim |
For the cubes showing data for claims in the year they were closed, the amount agreed to be paid to the claimant in total settlement of the claim, plus investigative and defence legal costs, recorded in broad dollar ranges. |
| Mode of claim finalisation |
For the cubes showing data for claims in the year they were closed, description of the process by which the claim was finalised. ‘Settled through State-Territory-based complaints processes’, ‘Settled through court-based alternative dispute resolution processes’ and ‘Settled through statutorily mandated compulsory conference process’ have been aggregated under ‘Conference, dispute-resolution and health-complaints processes’. |
| Clinical service context |
The area of clinical practice or hospital department in which the patient was receiving a health-care service when the alleged incident occurred. |
| Primary incident/allegation category |
The high-level category describing what is alleged to have ‘gone wrong’; that is, the area of the possible error, negligence or problem that was of primary importance in giving rise to the claim, reflecting key causal factors. |
| Primary incident/allegation subcategory |
Detailed information on the ‘Medication-related’, ‘Procedure’ and ‘Treatment’ Primary incident/allegation categories. |
| Extent of harm |
The extent or severity of overall harm to the patient. |
Basic instructions for use
When a data cube is opened the table shows 'Number of claims' as the default measure. To view any of the other three measures, use the left mouse to drag the icon for the measure onto the column headings, and drop the icon when a downward arrow or left-pointing arrow appears. The additional measure will appear in a separate column. To remove any measure from view, right click its column heading and select 'Hide <measurement>' from the menu.
To add a dimension to the table, left click its icon and drag it towards the top left hand of the table. To display it as an additional column dimension, wait till a left-pointing arrow appears and drop the icon. To display it as an additional row dimension, wait till a downward-pointing arrow appears and drop the icon. To remove a dimension, right click its label in the top left hand of the table and select 'Hide <dimension>' from the menu, or you can replace the dimension by selecting 'Change <dimension> to <other dimension> from the menu.
If there are too many column and/or row headings to appear in the same screen, there are arrows that allow you to scroll through the column headings and row headings.
To print off the cube, click the print icon in the top bar and select 'Print to PDF'.
If you want to collate subtotals and/or totals, right click the table area, tick the appropriate boxes and click OK. To convert counts into per cents of totals, it will be necessary to export the data into an Excel file. Exporting the data into an Excel file allows you to carry out all the standard Excel functions, and also to move categories around (which cannot be done within the data cubes).
The data can be exported to Excel (or Word) by right clicking the table area and select 'Export table' from the menu and then click the 'Open' and (if displayed) 'Yes' buttons. The default is to export all rows but this can be changed to a specific selection. The exported files are actually htm files (with a .do extension) and so to save the file, select 'Save as' from the top-left menu, scroll through the file type options to assign .xls/.xslx (or .doc/.docx as appropriate), give the file a name and save it in the directory of your choosing.