The hospital discharge statistics contain stay-related, patient-related and medical reporting data on inpatient hospital stays, including information on the medical procedures performed as inpatient (surgical interventions as well as non-surgical treatments and examinations).
On the basis of the Federal Act on Documentation in the Health Care Sector, medical procedures have been recorded in hospitals since 1997; they are coded on the basis of the DRG service catalogue (“procedure-oriented hospital financing“ on the basis of diagnosis-related groups), which was converted to a new coding system in 2009. The single micro-data records of the statistics refer to single service codes and also contain patient- and hospital-related information.