On 1 July 2021, Victoria will implement the national funding model as a basis to determine hospital funding for Victorian public health services going forward.
Transitioning to the national funding approach will better align Victoria with the rest of the Commonwealth and enable health services increased flexibility to allocate resources across service types.
Under the national funding approach, activity is measured and funded in terms of national weighted activity units (NWAU). The NWAUs provide a way of comparing and valuing each service provided by public hospitals, whether they are admissions, emergency department presentations or non-admitted service events, weighted for clinical complexity.
Calculating NWAU is new to Victorian public health services. To assist with the transition to the national funding approach, VAHI’s Health Services Data (HSD) team are developing monthly NWAU activity reports to make available to health services. The reports will enable health services to monitor their own NWAU across care streams such as admitted acute, admitted subacute and nonacute, non-admitted and emergency department and urgent care centres. The NWAU calculation contained within the reports is obtained by using the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA) provided NWAU calculator.
The HSD reports will include aggregate activity data, national adjustments and NWAU and will be broken down by account class or care type. Input has been sought from several health services on the content of the reports and their feedback has been reflected in the development of the reports. The new NWAU activity reports relate to activity undertaken from 1 July 2021.
Additionally, patient level extracts will be provided to health services which can be used by health services to verify their own NWAU calculations.
For more information about the implementation of the national funding model, please visit:
If you have any questions about the implementation of the national funding model, please contact nationalfundingmodel@health.vic.gov.au.