The Elective Surgery Data Collection (ESDC) is a monthly collection of patients who are still waiting on the elective surgery waiting list in one of 52 reporting public hospitals. The ESDC collects demographic, waiting list and service information to meet State and national reporting requirements. The Elective Surgery Waiting List Census Data Supply Requirement defines the meaning and describes the acceptable representation of a set of data elements required for submission.

In Queensland public hospitals, there is a need for uniform and reliable information on the activity, demand and performance of elective surgery services. A statewide elective surgery data collection provides Hospital and Health Services (HHS), and the Department of Health, with consistent and actionable data.
From 1 July 2015, the HHS Service Agreements include a requirement that all in-scope services provide data to the collection according to a minimum data set, outlined in this document.

Elective surgery is defined as surgery for patients whose clinical condition requires a procedure that can be managed by placement on a waiting list. 
For the purpose of the ESDC, this is described as a service request with:
- A Clinical urgency category of 1, 2 or 3;
- A Surgical specialty code of 01 to 11.
Out of scope is emergency surgery, elective caesareans and medical inductions of labour. 
A list of in-scope facilities submitting to the ESDC can be found in the ESDC manual.
A patient is waiting on an elective surgery waiting list when a service request for a surgical procedure has been received and the patient has been wait-listed, and the procedure has not yet been performed or the patient has not been removed from the waiting list for any other reason. Waiting patients includes those who are on the waiting list with a booking date in the future, and those who are waiting without a booking date.

More information regarding Elective Surgery Data Collection submissions can be found in the manual, which is located: <INTERNAL QH LINK NOT AVAILABLE>

The method of submission to the collection is detailed in the HIU Data Collection Guide 2019-2020. Services that use the Hospital Based Corporate Information System - Elective Admissions Management Module (HBCIS-EAM) has automatic interface that submits data to the data collection on census dates. All in-scope facilities have this interface with the exception of Mater Health Service.

The census date is the point in time at which the waiting list is reported (Part B). The ESDC census date is the first day of each month. Although submission to the ESDC is due by the 4th day of the month. Part B of the submission refers to the waiting list as at the census date. 

Although referred to as a date, the census date is technically a date and time, and represents the moment the clock switches from 23:59:59 at the end of the last day of the month to 00:00:00 at the start of the first day of the month. Patients added to the waiting list throughout the first day of the month, after the start of that day, are therefore not included as waiting at the census date (Part B).

Census; DSR; ESDC; Waiting; Waiting list