Information assets
An information asset is a discrete collection of information or data that is recognised as valuable to an organisation. Assets may include data collections, publications, reports, guides, manuals, lists and registers.
What information does the Department of Health hold?
The department collects and generates data and information about the services it provides, manages, or funds. Find out more about the department's services.
All significant assets (that is, those that are of high value or high risk or are required to be registered for legislative or other reasons) are recorded in the Information Asset Register.
The Register provides brief information about each asset, its description and purpose. The table below describes the Register entries:
Column Heading | Description |
|---|---|
Name | The name of the information asset |
Acronym | Abbreviation or acronym that the asset is known by (if any) |
Description | A short description of the information asset and the data/information it contains. |
Purpose | The reason(s) the information is collected or produced and how it is used. |
Content Type | Assets have content that is Analytical, Published, or Transactional. Analytical means that the information is a product of analysis or is aggregated data. Published means that the information is available publicly, usually via a webpage or a report Transactional is data collected from external agencies or generated by the department and is often unit record data |
Status | Active means the asset is current and may be periodically updated Inactive means the asset is no longer being updated, although it may still be in use |
Personal Information | Indicates whether the asset contains information that is classed as ‘personal’ which means that it may be possible to identify or reasonably ascertain the identity of an individual. |
Data Level | Indicates the format of the information. Aggregate means the data has been subtotalled or totalled by categories (for example, Total number of patients admitted to hospital, by Gender) Narrative means the asset contains words rather than data (for example, a report, a guide, or a procedure) Unit record means that each ‘line’ of data represents one ‘thing’ (for example, a housing data collection may collect a set of attributes about each accommodation asset) |
Managing Division | The division of the department that has overall responsibility for the management of the asset |
Requesting information
Data from an asset may be available to researchers, organisations, and members of the public as long as the proposed use of the data meets legislative and privacy requirements. Some assets contain identifying and/or sensitive information and access to data may be restricted.
Requests for data can be made via the Freedom of Information process, or via our standard data request processes. The Information and Data Management team can assist to find the right team to service your request.
There may be other information available that is not listed in the Register for a number of reasons. If there is data about a service that the department delivers that you would like to access, contact Information and Data Management.
Access to additional published and authored information assets
The Victorian Government Library (VGLS) website contains a large number of evaluations, reports and reviews – publicly available for download as electronic documents.
Reviewed 01 April 2023