Hospitals info & downloads: Reports

Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections (SAB, or ‘golden staph’) associated with hospital care can be serious, particularly when bacteria are resistant to common antimicrobials.

In 2018–19, all states and territories had public hospital SAB infection rates below the national benchmark of 2.0 cases per 10,000 patient days.

Over the past 5 years, the SAB infection rate has remained stable, for instance, 0.79 in 2014–15 and 0.75 in 2018–19.

Between 2009–10 and 2016–17, the number of private hospital admitted patient care separations reported through the Private Health Establishments Collection were consistently higher than those reported through the National Hospital Morbidity Database.

The potentially preventable hospitalisations (PPH) indicator is a proxy measure of primary care effectiveness. PPH are specific hospital admissions that potentially could have been prevented by timely and adequate health care in the community. This report highlights disparities in PPH rates between populations, particularly the very young and the elderly, those in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, remote areas, and Indigenous Australians, and illustrates some challenges and opportunities for PPH reporting.

More information is available in the companion PDF report Disparities in potentially preventable hospitalisations across Australia, 2012–13 to 2017–18.

The potentially preventable hospitalisations (PPH) indicator is a proxy measure of primary care effectiveness. PPH are specific hospital admissions that potentially could have been prevented by timely and adequate health care in the community. This report highlights disparities in PPH rates between populations, particularly the very young and the elderly, those in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas, remote areas, and Indigenous Australians, and illustrates some challenges and opportunities for PPH reporting.

More information is available in the companion web report Disparities in potentially preventable hospitalisations across Australia: Exploring the data.

The potentially preventable hospitalisations (PPH) indicator is a proxy measure of primary care effectiveness. PPH are certain hospital admissions that potentially could have been prevented by timely and adequate health care in the community. There are 22 conditions for which hospitalisation is considered potentially preventable, across 3 broad categories: chronic, acute and vaccine-preventable conditions. This 2017–18 data update provides information by Primary Health Network (PHN) and Statistical Area Level 3 (SA3). Rates for two age groups (for people aged under 65 years, and 65 years and over) are also included.

This report discusses existing and potential data sources on female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Australia, identifying opportunities to enhance and develop systematically collected data collections. Data from one national data source, the National Hospital Morbidity Database, are presented, showing that 477 hospitalisations with an FGM/C diagnosis were recorded from 2015–16 to 2017–18.

In 2017–18, almost 67,800 courses of radiotherapy were delivered in Australia. 50% of all radiotherapy patients started treatment within 10 days, and 90% within 26 days. For those who needed emergency treatment (1.4% of courses), 96% began treatment within the recommended timeframe—on the same or the next day.

Some presentations to hospital emergency departments that are for lower urgency care may be avoidable through provision of other appropriate health services in the community. Although the use of emergency departments for this type of care has fallen nationally, there is marked variation across areas. For example, rates in regional Primary Health Network (PHN) areas were almost twice as high (159 per 1,000 people) as in metropolitan PHN areas (92 per 1,000 people).

Non-admitted patient care 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics includes information on consultations with specialist medical practitioners, provision of diagnostic or other procedures, and care provided by allied health or clinical nurse specialists between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2018.

In 2017–18:

• There were 693 public hospitals and 657 private hospitals in Australia.
• The Australian Government provided 41% of public hospital funding and 24% of private hospital funding.
• Recurrent expenditure on public hospitals was $71 billion, with about 62% of this spent on salaries, wages and superannuation.

The Emergency department care 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics web report presents information on care provided in public hospital emergency departments (EDs) between 1 July 2017 and 30 June 2018. It includes information on overall activity, nationally agreed performance indicators on waiting times for care, time spent in the ED, and other waiting times statistics. It also includes comparative information for the previous 4 reporting periods.

A PDF version of this report was first published on 6 December 2018. Additional material was added on 1 March 2019:

• web report
• excel data tables
• interactive data visualisations.

Elective surgery waiting times 2017–18 focuses on information about public hospital elective surgery waiting lists. It presents information on overall activity, what elective surgery was provided and how long people waited for elective surgery.

A PDF version of this report was first published on 6th December 2018. Additional material was added on the 1st of March 2019:

• Web based report
• Excel data tables
• Interactive data visualisation.

Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections (SAB also called S. aureus, or ‘golden staph’) associated with healthcare can be serious, particularly when they are resistant to common antimicrobials.

In 2017–18, all states and territories had public hospital SAB rates below the national benchmark of 2.0 cases per 10,000 patient days.

Between 2013–14 and 2015–16, the SAB rate decreased from 0.89 to 0.74 cases per 10,000 patient days. It has remained around this level since (0.76 in 2016–17 and 0.73 in 2017–18).

This MyHospitals web update presents information on healthcare-associated Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections for 677 public hospitals and 157 private hospitals in Australia in 2017–18. Data are presented for total cases, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA).

Interactive web tools are provided to allow comparisons of public hospitals against other similar hospitals.

The World Health Organization estimates that female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) affects over 200 million women and girls across the world. This report provides an indication of the potential number of women and girls living in Australia who may have undergone FGM/C. The numbers presented are modelled estimates only, calculated by combining international household survey data with Australian population estimates.

Information on hospitalisations is taken from the National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD).

In 2016-17 there were about 11.0 million separations (episodes of admitted patient care) in Australia’s public and private hospitals.

137,000 hospital separations with a drug-related principal diagnosis were reported in 2016–17, representing 1.2% of all hospital separations, and Alcohol accounted for 51% of all drug-related hospital separations.

This report examined the health services used by more than 37,300 people with coronary heart disease (CHD) who were discharged from a public hospital in New South Wales or Victoria between April 2012 and June 2013. The report analysed linked de-identified hospitalisation data to Medicare Benefits Schedule data and National Death Index data.

The report shows that the vast majority of CHD patients visited their General Practitioner (GP) within 30 days of being discharged from hospital and that they had, on average, 1 or 2 visits per month during a two year follow-up timeframe. Timely and regular contact with a GP were associated with lower risk of having an emergency re-admission to hospital for cardiovascular disease.