This report is the first to allow meaningful comparisons of costs for acute admitted patients in public hospitals. Through innovative development work by the National Health Performance Authority, two measures have been used to assess the relative efficiency of Australia’s largest public hospitals: Cost per National Weighted Activity Unit (NWAU) and Comparable Cost of Care. These assess the overall relative efficiency of Australian public hospitals by reporting costs against units of activity, which allow different treatments and operations to be compared fairly.
This publication was originally published by the National Health Performance Authority, which transferred its activities to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on 1 July 2016.
- ISSN: 2201-3091
- ISBN: 978-1-76007-184-4
- Cat. no: HPF 55
- Pages: 42
Findings from this report:
-
Cost per NWAU was more than two times as high in similar hospitals
-
Comparable Cost of Care was nearly two times as high in similar hospitals
-
The cost of some conditions and procedures was nearly four times as high in similar hospitals
-
The results were similar measuring Cost per NWAU and Comparable Cost of Care