Establishing a composite neonatal adverse outcome indicator using English hospital administrative data.

Objective: We adapted a composite neonatal adverse outcome indicator (NAOI), originally derived in Australia, and assessed its feasibility and validity as an outcome indicator in English administrative hospital data.

Design: We used Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data containing information infants born in the English National Health Service (NHS) between 1 April 2014 and 31 March 2015. The Australian NAOI was mapped to diagnoses and procedure codes used within HES and modified to reflect data quality and neonatal health concerns in England.