Capturing religious identity during hospital admission: a valid practice in our increasingly secular society?

Objective Most major Victorian hospitals include religious identity in routine admission demographic questions. However, approximately 20% of admissions do not have their religious identity recorded. At the Royal Melbourne Hospital this missing 20% was surveyed throughout 2014-15 for two reasons: (1) to enable patient care; and (2) to provide an insight into the significance of religious identity for patients.