Counting acute inpatient care. ABF Information Series No. 5

As outlined in ABF Information Paper Number 1, a critical element of Activity Based Funding (ABF) is the need to define, classify, count, cost and pay for each health care activity in a consistent manner. For acute patients who stay in hospital for more than a day, this is not an issue. These patients are classified as acute ‘overnight admitted patients’ and are counted by Diagnosis Related Group (DRG).