Inclusive collection and reporting of sex and gender data

The department has approved changes to 2 data elements within its hospital (public and private and day procedure centres) data collections:

• Victorian hospitals are to report data on patients' 'sex at birth' rather than 'sex' (effective 1 July 2024)
• Victorian hospitals are to report on patients’ ‘gender’ (optional from 1 July 2023, mandatory from 1 July 2024)

These changes apply to:

• ESIS (Elective Surgery Information System)
• VAED (Victorian Admitted Episodes Dataset)
• VEMD (Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset)
• VINAH (Victorian Integrated Non-Admitted Health Minimum Dataset).

Find out more about the annual changes to Victorian health service data reporting requirements.

Why it is important to collect and report data on sex and gender

Current data collections don't reflect Victoria's diversity.

Before these changes, hospitals were only required to collect and report a patient’s sex. Some people have a different sex or gender to what was assigned to them at birth or a gender that sits outside of the spectrum of male and female. It is important that trans and gender diverse people are able to accurately inform health services of their sex and gender in a safe and inclusive way.

Collecting a patient's sex at birth and gender enables better healthcare.

Trans and gender diverse people may have distinct healthcare and other support needs. Health services that have information about both a patient’s assigned sex at birth and their gender will generally be in a better position to provide clinically appropriate and inclusive healthcare to trans and gender diverse people.