Overview

Australia's hospital services are provided by public and private hospitals. Largely, public hospitals are owned and managed by state and territory governments, and private hospitals are owned and managed by private for-profit and not-for-profit organisations.

More reports and statistics on hospitals can be found under Health care quality & performance and Primary health care.

Latest findings

871,000 patients were removed from elective surgery waiting lists. Most (86%) were admitted for their awaited procedure In 2017–18, 50% of patients were admitted for elective surgery within 40 days—compared with 36 days in 2013–14 In 2017–18, 874,000 patients were added to public hospital elective surgery waiting lists 72% of patients were ‘seen on time’, including almost all of those requiring immediate care 8 million patients presented to Australian public hospital emergency departments (EDs) Cataract surgery was the most common procedure for admissions from elective surgery waiting lists in 2017–18 71% of presentations were completed within 4 hours In 2017–18, around 21% of patients were admitted for General surgery (abdominal organs, endocrine and breast surgery) 25% of emergency department presentations had a diagnosis related to injury and poisoning 90% of patients completed their ED stay within 11 hours and 8 minutes. 31% of patients were admitted to hospital following their ED care On average, 22,000 patients presented to an ED every day

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Highlights

10.6 millionhospitalisations occurred in public and private hospitals in 2015–16—25% involved a surgical procedure
7.5 millionpresentations were made to public hospital emergency departments, or more than 20,000 presentations each day
1,440cases of hospital-associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) were reported in Australian public hospitals
30 milliondays of admitted patient care were provided—20.2 million in public hospitals and 9.7 million in private hospitals
712,000patients were admitted to public hospitals from elective surgery waiting lists—50% of patients were admitted within 37 days
22,700hospitalisations in 2014–15 involved weight loss surgery procedures—7 in 8 of these were in private hospitals