Admitted patient palliative care
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.
This chapter provides information related to palliative care-related hospitalisations – that is hospitalisations where palliative care was provided during all or part of the episode of care – and the distribution and characteristics of these hospitalisations over the period 2015–16 to 2022–23. Further information about how palliative care-related hospitalisations are identified through admitted patient care data is provided in Data source.
The information in this chapter was last updated in October 2024.
Box 1: Identifying palliative care in admitted patient care data
People with life-limiting illnesses may require care in a hospital setting, such as a hospital ward (specialist palliative care ward or other areas of the hospital), an emergency department or an outpatient clinic.
This chapter only covers care for admitted patients, who undergo a formal admission process in public or private hospitals to receive treatment and/or care.
Palliative care-related hospitalisations refer to those episodes of admitted patient care where palliative care was a component of the care provided during all or part of the episode. These hospitalisations can be divided into 2 groups depending on how they are identified in the hospital data:
- primary palliative care hospitalisations: hospitalisations with a recorded care type of palliative care, and
- other palliative care hospitalisations: hospitalisations with a recorded diagnosis of palliative care, but the care type is not recorded as palliative care.
For more information, see Data source.
Key points
In 2022–23, among the 101,000 palliative care-related hospitalisations:
- just over half (53%) were for males
- 3 in 5 (60%) were for people aged 75 and over
- the average age at admission was 75 years
- 54,100 were for primary palliative care and 46,800 for other palliative care, equating to 21 and 18 per 10,000 population, respectively
- 2 in 5 (40%) had a principal diagnosis of cancer – 48% for primary palliative care hospitalisations and 30% for other palliative care hospitalisations
- the average length of stay was almost twice as long as for all overnight hospitalisations (11 days compared with 5.7 days) – 9.3 days for primary palliative care hospitalisations and 12 days for other palliative care hospitalisations
- almost 3 in 5 (57%) ended with the patient dying in hospital – 69% for primary palliative care hospitalisations and 43% for other palliative care hospitalisations.
Between 2015–16 and 2022–23:
- there was a 37% increase (from 73,600 to 101,000) in the number of palliative care-related hospitalisations – steeper than that observed for hospitalisations for all reasons (15% increase, or from 10.5 million to 12.1 million)
- the rate for palliative care-related hospitalisations increased from 31 to 38 per 10,000 population (from 26 to 29 per 10,000 population after adjusting for changes in the population age structure) – suggesting ageing of Australia’s population is contributing to the growth in palliative care-related hospitalisations.
Key concept | Description |
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Additional diagnosis | A condition or complaint either coexisting with the principal diagnosis or arising during the episode of admitted patient care, episode of residential care or attendance at a health care establishment. See METEOR identifier: 746667. |
Admitted patient | A patient who undergoes a hospital’s formal admission process to receive treatment and/or care. This treatment and/or care is provided over a period and can occur in hospital and/or in the person’s home (for hospital-in-the-home patients). See METEOR identifier: 268957. |
Average length of stay | The average number of days spent in hospital for each stay (episode of care) for admitted patients who stayed at least one night. Patients admitted and separated on the same day are allocated a length of 1 day. |
Care type | The overall nature of a clinical service provided to an admitted patient during an episode of care. It can be assigned as:
|
Episode of care | A period of admitted patient care with a defined start and end. In this report, this is also referred to as a hospitalisation. See METEOR identifier: 268978. |
Funding source | The source of funds for an admitted patient episode. Examples include public patient, privately insured, compensable (motor vehicle accident), Department of Veterans' Affairs or Workers Compensation. See METEOR identifier: 780491. |
Hospitalisation | An episode of hospital care that starts with the formal admission process and ends with the formal separation process (synonymous with admission and separation). An episode of care can be completed by the patient’s being discharged, being transferred to another hospital or care facility, or dying, or by a portion of a hospital stay starting or ending in a change of type of care (for example, from acute to rehabilitation). |
Other palliative care hospitalisation | A hospitalisation with a recorded diagnosis of palliative care, but the care type is not recorded as palliative care. |
Overnight hospitalisation | An admitted patient who received hospital treatment for a minimum of 1 night (that is, admitted to, and has a separation from, hospital on different dates). |
Primary palliative care hospitalisation | A hospitalisation with a recorded care type of palliative care. |
Palliative care-related hospitalisation | A hospitalisation where palliative care was a component of the care provided during all or part of the episode. These hospitalisations can be divided into 2 groups:
|
Principal diagnosis | The diagnosis established after study to be chiefly responsible for occasioning an episode of admitted patient care, episode of residential care or attendance at a health care establishment. See METEOR identifier: 746665. |
Private hospital | A privately (non-government) owned and operated institution catering for patients who are treated by a doctor of their own choice. Patients are charged fees for accommodation and other services provided by the hospital and relevant medical and paramedical practitioners. Private acute care and psychiatric hospitals are included in this category as are private free-standing day facilities. |
Public hospital | A hospital controlled by a state or territory health authority. Public hospitals offer free diagnostic services, treatment, care and accommodation to all eligible patients. |
Status at discharge | Status at discharge was calculated using 'Separation mode' in Admitted Patient Care data, which represents a patient’s discharge circumstance with a code. See METEOR identifier: 270094. |