Close search bar

National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) metadata

Overview

The National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) contains data for hospital-based and community-based ambulatory care:

  • Day surgeries
  • Outpatient and community-based clinics
  • Emergency departments

Client visit data is collected at time of service in participating facilities.

Find out more about emergency and ambulatory care, including reports and analyses based on NACRS data.

Data source

CIHI receives data directly from participating facilities or from regional health authorities or ministries of health. Data collection methods may vary by facility.

NACRS offers 3 options for submitting emergency department (ED) records:

  • Level 1
  • Level 2
  • Level 3

Records for day surgery and other ambulatory care visits are submitted at Level 3. NACRS offers a Clinic Lite option, Level 0, for submitting basic but essential clinic data.

Data coverage

NACRS receives ED, day surgery and/or clinic submissions from several jurisdictions. Submission of ED data to NACRS is mandated in Quebec,  Ontario, Alberta and the Yukon; and it is partially mandated in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Submission of day surgery data to NACRS is mandated in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Alberta. 

The implementation and mandate of NACRS reporting is continuously evolving. For additional details on data coverage, please refer to our Data Quality Documentation, available under Data Quality. Jurisdictional coverage information is also available on our website.

Quarterly submission targets

To improve data timeliness, facilities are encouraged to meet quarterly submission targets of 60 days after the end of each quarter:

  • Fiscal year 2024–2025 
    • Q1: target for April-to-June-2024 visits is August 31, 2024 
    • Q2: target for July-to-September-2024 visits is November 30, 2024 
    • Q3: target for October-to-December-2024 visits is February 28, 2025 
    • Q4 (same as jurisdictional year-end deadline): 
      • Target for January-2025-to-March-2025 visits is May 31, 2025 (Ontario only) 
      • Target for January-2025-to-March-2025 visits is June 30, 2025 (all other jurisdictions) 

Data availability

Data is available for the following fiscal years:

  • Next release: 2024–2025
  • Provisional data: 
    • Q1 (April to June) 2024–2025, available September 15, 2024
    • Q2 (July to September) 2024–2025, available December 15, 2024
    • Q3 (October to December) 2024–2025, available March 15, 2025
    • Q4 (January to March)/annual 2024–2025 (final year-end data), available July 2025; this is the complete closed-year data
  • Most recent closed-year data: 2023–2024
  • Historical series: 2001–2002 to 2022–2023

For data requests, please complete and submit the online data inquiry form.

Data elements

NACRS collects demographic, administrative, clinical and service-specific data for ED, day surgery and other ambulatory care visits.

Below is the link to the data elements document:

Classification

As early as 2001–2002, some provinces and territories began using ICD-10-CA and CCI to capture diagnoses and interventions in hospital separations reported to NACRS. Since 2004–2005, all NACRS records have been reported in ICD-10-CA and CCI; prior to that, ICD-9, CCP and ICD-9-CM were used.

The most recent classifications and related products can be found on the Classification resources page.

To request classifications and related products from 2006 to 2012, send an email to help@cihi.ca.

Picklists

The Presenting Complaint List (data element 136), ED Discharge Diagnosis (data element 137) and Emergency Department Intervention Value Set (data element 173a–f) are completed using NACRS pick-lists that contain predefined words or phrases to choose from.

The Presenting Complaint List includes common symptoms, complaints, problems or reasons for seeking medical care.

he Canadian Emergency Department Diagnoses Shortlist (CED-DxS) includes more than 800 diagnoses in common terms, which are mapped to ICD-10-CA codes.

The Emergency Department Intervention Value Set (EDVS) includes a list of 173 clinical (common) terms for interventions that are most common/relevant to ED encounters. The terms are mapped to CCI codes. 

All NACRS pick-lists are available on CIHI’s Products page.

To request additions or changes to the pick-lists, please submit a Canadian Emergency Department Diagnosis Shortlist (CED-DxS) and Emergency Department Intervention Value Set (EDVS) Public Submission Form (XLSX).

For more information, or if you have questions regarding one of the pick-lists, please contact us at nacrspicklists@cihi.ca.

Please see the documentation for clients who select diagnoses from the Canadian Emergency Department Diagnosis Shortlist (CED-DxS) for NACRS data element, 137 ED Discharge Diagnosis.

Data quality

CIHI ensures that the quality of the information in our data holdings is suited to its intended uses, and that data users are provided with accurate information about data quality. Read more about our Data and Information Quality Program.

Below are links to data quality documents:

Open-year data quality test specifications

Additional data quality resources

Privacy impact assessment

Privacy impact assessments (PIAs) evaluate and address the privacy impacts of programs and systems. 

Go to the Privacy and security page to view the PIA, which contains further information about the purposes, data elements and data sources for this data holding.

Contact us 

For further information, please email

help@cihi.ca

How to cite:

Canadian Institute for Health Information. National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) metadata. Accessed April 24, 2025.