Emergency departments provide care for patients who may have an urgent need for medical, surgical or other care. Emergency departments may also provide services for patients returning for further care, or for patients waiting to be admitted to a ward. About one in four presentations to emergency departments ends with the patient being admitted to hospital.
Public hospitals provide most emergency department services. Private hospitals provided about 527,000 emergency department services in 2009–10 (ABS 2011), about 6% of the total for that year.
Public hospitals
There were about 7.7 million emergency visits to public hospitals in 2010–11. Between 2006–07 and 2010–11, they increased by an average of 3.2% per year (Figure 11).
These visits include both those to formal emergency departments in larger hospitals and those to smaller hospitals (commonly in more remote areas) with other arrangements for providing emergency services.