A Microsimulation Model of Hospital Patients: New South Wales

Late in 2000 NATSEM was awarded a three-year Australian Research Council Strategic Partnership with Industry Research and Training (SPIRT) grant. The grant involves: • adding an indicator of socioeconomic status to patient-based hospitals administrative datasets for New South Wales over the period 1996-97 to 1999-00, in which expenditures have been allocated to each individual patient; • building a microsimulation model capable of projecting future usage and costs of hospitals in New South Wales; and • constructing a private health insurance model to facilitate estimation of the split of total demand and expenditures between private and public hospital, and analysis of the effects of certain policy changes. This technical paper documents the development of the enhanced NSW hospitals micro datasets and the building of the microsimulation projection model. An approach to calibrating the model is also described. The Private Health Insurance Model will be documented in a separate technical paper