Overview

Health performance measures help us to ensure that services delivered in Australia are effective, appropriate and are achieving good outcomes for patients and the wider community. Reporting of safety and quality aspects also ensure that health care is being delivered in line with current professional knowledge and standards. Together, this kind of information can help consumers make informed choices about available services.

More reports and statistics on health care quality & performance can be found under Hospitals and International comparisons.

Latest findings

Remote area GPs were less likely to be informed of patients’ last specialist visit compared with major city GPs People from regional PHN areas had a higher presentation rate than people from metropolitan PHN areas 1 in 4 patients who visited an emergency department said information was not shared with their GP In 2016, nearly all patients (98%) reported that their usual GP or place of care was aware of their health-care history After-hours lower urgency presentations fell by 3.4% (from 58 to 56 per 1,000 people) over the 3 years Patients with a usual place of care only, were more likely to report poor information sharing than those with a usual GP 12% of patients aged 45–54 did not receive enough information about their care compared with 6% aged 65 and over Children under 15 had a rate of lower urgency care presentations that was 1.6 times as high as the general population About 1 in 3 emergency department presentations were for lower urgency care in 2017–18

Highlights

93%of all children aged 5 were immunised in 2015–16, with rates ranging from 84% to 98% across local areas
0.73cases of the ’golden staph’ bloodstream infection per 10,000 days of patient care were recorded in Australian public hospitals in 2015–16
74%of patients were seen within the recommended time in public hospital emergency departments in 2015–16
An AIHW satellite site
An AIHW satellite site
6.4%of all hospitalisations in 2015–16 were thought to be potentially preventable
The second Australian atlas of healthcare variation 2017