Admitted patients

Admitted patients are people who undergo a formal admission process in a public or private hospital to receive treatment and/or care. The types of care provided include surgical care, medical care, intensive care, newborn care, rehabilitation care, palliative care, and mental health care.

Explore more details on the care provided to admitted patients (hospitalisations) via the links beside the green icons at the bottom of the page.

There were 12.1 million hospitalisations for admitted patients in 2022–23 — a rate of 415 hospitalisations per 1,000 population.

In 2022–23:

• 670 public hospitals provided admitted patient care services
• there were 12.1 million hospitalisations – a rate of 415 hospitalisations per 1,000 population
• there were 33.2 million days of patient care
• the average length of stay was 2.7 days
• 91% of hospitalisations were classified as episodes of Acute care
• nearly 1 in 4 (23%, 1.7 million) of same-day acute hospitalisations in all hospitals were for Care involving dialysis
• people aged 65 and over accounted for 44% of hospitalisations and 51% of patient days.

Between January 2020 and June 2023, there were over 454,000 hospitalisations involving a COVID-19 diagnosis – 183,000 in 2022–23.

Changes over time

Over the last 10 years to 2022–23:

• the number of hospitalisations increased from 9.7 million to 12.1 million
• the rate of hospitalisation increased from 395 per 1,000 population to 415 per 1,000 population
• the number of patient days increased from 27.9 million patient days to 33.2 million patient days
• the average length of stay decreased from 2.9 days to 2.7 days.

Emergency department activity data are available in the Emergency department care activity area of the MyHospitals site.

Elective surgery activity are available in the Elective surgery activity area of the MyHospitals site.

Additional information is available in the Australia's health performance area of the AIHW website.