Summary
Non-admitted patient care provided in public hospitals includes care provided in outpatient clinics at which patients consult specialist medical practitioners, or have diagnostic or other procedures, or are provided with allied health or specialist nursing care. This report summarises this type of hospital care for 2014–15.
Non-admitted patient care can also include care provided in emergency departments; the dispensing of medicines; and district nursing and community health services provided by hospitals. Information about these activities is not included in this report.
How much non-admitted patient activity was reported?
In 2014–15, about 34.9 million non-admitted patient care service events were reported for 610 public hospitals and 41 other services (including local hospital networks and some private hospitals in Western Australia) that provided non-admitted patient care for public patients.
The majority of service events (71%) were reported for Principal referral and women's and children's hospitals and Public acute group A hospitals.
What services were provided?
In 2014–15, about 46% of non-admitted patient service events were in Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist clinics and 30% were in Medical consultation clinics. A further 13% of non-admitted patient service events were in Procedural clinics and 10% were in Stand-alone diagnostic clinics.
The most common non-admitted patient service provided in Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist clinics was in Primary health care clinics (2.2 million service events) and the most common in Medical consultation clinics was in General practice and primary care clinics
(1.0 million service events). For Procedural clinics, the most common non-admitted patient services were in clinics providing Enteral nutrition-home delivered (or tube feeding,
1.1 million service events), followed by clinics providing Dental procedures (836,000 service events).
Who used these services?
Information on the characteristics of patients using non-admitted patient services was available for about 55% of the service events, mainly for those provided in larger hospitals.
About 56% of non-admitted patient service events were for females and 31% of service events were for people aged 65 and over.
About 4.5% of non-admitted patient service events were for Indigenous Australians.
How were the services funded?
Most non-admitted patient care in public hospitals is funded by the jurisdiction's health service budget. However, in 2014–15, about 12% of non-admitted patient service events were funded by the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and smaller numbers were funded through compensation schemes and the Department of Veterans' Affairs. A relatively large proportion of service events in procedural clinics were funded by MBS (32%) and a relatively small proportion in allied health and clinical nurse specialist clinics (1%).