Overnight admitted patient care occurs when the patient is admitted and separated on different days (stays at least one night). This section reports on overnight acute care (referred to as overnight care), where the care was not for rehabilitation or other non-acute care (which made up 5.1% of overnight separations).
In 2009–10, 3.4 million or 40.2% of separations were overnight acute care separations. This included 2.4 million or 46.7% of separations from public hospitals and 1.1 million or 30.6% of separations from private hospitals.
Between 2005–06 and 2009–10, the number of overnight acute separations increased, on average, by 2.6% per year for public hospitals, and by 2.2% per year for private hospitals.
Who used these services?
Indigenous Australians were hospitalised overnight at about twice the rate for other Australians.
Persons usually resident in Very remote areas had 253 overnight acute separations per 1,000 population, compared with 151 per 1,000 nationwide.
Separation rates varied by socioeconomic status, from 130 per 1,000 population for the highest SES group to 170 per 1,000 for the lowest SES group.
How urgent was the care?
About 50% of overnight acute separations were for emergency care, 39% were for elective care and about 11% were other planned care (not assigned) (Figure 39).
Figure 39: Overnight acute separations by urgency of admission, 2009–10
Why did people receive this care?
The most common principal diagnoses for overnight acute separations included:
- pain in the throat and chest (almost 71,000 separations)
- sleep disorders (59,000 separations)
- pneumonia (54,000 separations)
- various heart-related conditions (over 170,000 separations), such as heart failure, angina pectoris, acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) and atrial fibrillation and flutter.
What care was provided?
In public hospitals, over 72% of overnight acute separations were for Medical care (including Specialist mental health).
In private hospitals, over 55% of overnight acute separations were for Surgical care.
How long did patients stay?
The average length of stay for overnight acute separations was 5.3 days for public hospitals and 4.7 days for private hospitals. This was shorter than for 2008–09 (5.4 and 4.8 days, respectively).
The average length of stay for Medical care was greater in private hospitals, and was notably higher in public hospitals than in private hospitals for Surgical and Other care (Figure 40).
Figure 40: Average length of stay for overnight acute separations, public and private hospitals, 2009–10
Who paid for the care?
In public hospitals, almost 84% of overnight acute separations were public patients.
In private hospitals, private health insurance funded over 83% of overnight acute separations.
International comparisons
The number of overnight separations per 1,000 population in Australia for 2009–10 was in the middle of the range that other OECD countries reported for recent years (Figure 41) (OECD 2009).
Figure 41: Overnight separations per 1,000 population, Australia, 2009–10 and selected OECD countries, (2008)
Rep.—Republic.
Notes:
- Data for OECD countries vary in collection periods, from financial year, fiscal year and calendar year. Data are for 2008 except for Australia (2009–10), the USA and Canada (2006) and Sweden (2007).
- Separations include all care types.
Although the OECD collate this information on as comparable a basis as possible, the comparability of international separation rates is likely to be affected by differences in definitions of hospitals, collection periods and in admission practices.