Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service

The Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service (DATS) dataset is required for residential drug and alcohol services that need to submit data using the National Minimum Dataset. There are variations for NSW.

The DATS dataset comprises the following items:
  • Clinical items:
    • Alcohol/Other Drug respite enrolment
    • Alcohol/Other Drug respite exit
    • Alcohol/Other Drug treatment enrolment
    • Alcohol/Other Drug treatment exit
    • DATS Counselling group
    • DATS Cultural group
    • DATS Educational group
    • DATS Living skills group
    • DATS Other group
    • DATS Sport/Recreation group
    • DATS Support group
    • Sobering-up overnight stay
  • Recalls:
    • Alcohol/Other Drug respite exit
    • Alcohol/Other Drug treatment exit
  • Reports for DATS NSW:
    • Monthly Episodes Export
    • Monthly Other Drugs Export
    • Monthly Other Services Export
    • Monthly Pharmacotherapy Type Export
    • Monthly Previous Services Export
    • Monthly Service Contacts Export
Tip: After the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service dataset is enabled, your Communicare Administrator must manually enable the clinical items in File > Reference Tables > Clinical Item Types before clinicians can use them.

The DATS clinical items are assigned the DATS keyword which clinicians can use to find the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service clinical items in the Clinical Terms Browser.

Enrol patients into a DATS program using either of the enrolment clinical items, then add activity items as required. When the DATS program is complete, to remove the patient from the program, complete the recall, which opens the matching exit clinical item and save it.

Tip: You cannot add activity items until after a patient has been enrolled in a program. However, you can still add activity items after a patient has been exited from a program. This allows for genuine backdating of clinical items. For example:
  • If you are using an offline client and your clinical program enrolments and exits have got out of step, you can backdate an exit.
  • If items are out of sequence, correct the items.
  • For a patient who exited last week, record an action from two weeks ago.