Hospitals
Types of care provided
Various types of care are provided to admitted patients. The care type describes the overall nature of a clinical service provided to an admitted patient during an episode of care. This is not the same as the diagnosis or condition for which a person might attend hospital. A single type of care can be used to manage many different conditions.
Care type can be classified as:
- Acute care
- Newborn care
- Subacute and non-acute care – Rehabilitation care, Palliative care, Geriatric evaluation and management, Maintenance care and Psychogeriatric care
- Mental health care.
Refer to More information about the data section below for definitions on the above care types.
Explore the data
In the data visualisation below, you can explore the number of hospitalisations by care type for public and private hospitals between 2020–21 and 2024–25, and by hospital, between 2015–16 to 2024–25.
Type of care
All data in these visualisations are available for download in the Data & downloads section.
Hospital sector
This column graph shows the number of hospitalisations by care type and private/public between 2018–19 and 2022–23. National data is presented by public/private and care type (acute, geriatric evaluation and management, maintenance care, mental health care, newborn care, palliative care, psychogeriatric care and rehabilitation care). In 2022–23, there were 6,704,048 Acute care separations in public hospitals and 4,380,444 Acute care separations in private hospitals.
Hospitals and LHNs
This table explores on the number of hospital admissions between 2012–13 and 2022–23. Data is presented by measure (number of admissions and care type). Hospital-level data is available.
In 2024–25, for the public and private sectors combined:
- 91% of hospitalisations were classified as episodes of Acute care
- 3.9% were classified as episodes of Rehabilitation care
- 2.8% were classified as episodes of Mental health care
- 0.6% were classified as episodes of Newborn care (this only refers to situations where the newborn requires specific care – not all births).
The proportions of hospitalisations for each care type varied by hospital sector. Public hospitals accounted for 62% of hospitalisations for Acute care, while private hospitals accounted for 82% of hospitalisations for Rehabilitation care.
Acute care
In 2024–25:
- around 9 in 10 hospitalisations in public (95%) and private hospitals (87%) were for Acute care
- the most common principal diagnosis reported for overnight acute hospitalisations was Single spontaneous delivery (childbirth with minimal or no assistance; 2.7% of hospitalisations)
- almost 1 in 4 (23%) of same-day acute hospitalisations had a principal diagnosis of Care involving dialysis.
Over the last five years, from 2020–21 to 2024–25, there has been an annual average increase in Acute care hospitalisations by 2.3% in public hospitals and 1.2% in private hospitals.
Newborn care
Newborns receiving care may have both qualified days (where the baby requires specialised care) and unqualified days (where routine care is provided as part of the care for the mother). Refer to More information about the data section below for definitions on qualified and unqualified care.
In 2024–25:
- there were 81,600 hospitalisations for Newborn care with at least one qualified day – the majority of these (88%) occurred in public hospitals
- nearly 1 in 4 hospitalisations for Newborn care had a principal diagnosis of Disorders related to short gestation and low birth weight, not elsewhere classified (23% of hospitalisations for qualified newborns), followed by Respiratory distress of newborn (15% of hospitalisations for qualified newborns)
- almost all (95%) hospitalisations for Newborn care were Discharged home and less than 0.3% Died.
Compared with 2020–21, in 2024–25:
- hospitalisations for qualified newborns increased by an annual average of 1.4% (from 52,800 to 56,700) in public hospitals and decreased in private hospitals by 4.6% (7,300 to 6,000)
- for unqualified newborns, hospitalisations decreased by an annual average of 2.2% in public hospitals and decreased by 2.3% in private hospitals.
Subacute and non-acute care
In 2024–25:
- 1 in 20 hospitalisations (5.2%) were for Subacute and non-acute care
- over the previous year, from 2023–24 to 2024–25, the number of hospitalisations for Subacute and non-acute care increased by 3.3% in public hospitals and increased by 3.2% in private hospitals
- over the last five years, from 2020–21 to 2024–25, there has been an annual average increase of 5.3% for Subacute and non-acute care hospitalisations in public hospitals and an annual average increase of 4.2% in private hospitals.
Rehabilitation care
In 2024–25:
- there were around 496,000 Rehabilitation care hospitalisations, with about 4 in 5 (82%) occurring in private hospitals
- New South Wales and Queensland combined accounted for more than 4 in 5 (85%) Rehabilitation care hospitalisations – 63% in New South Wales and 22% in Queensland.
Palliative care
In 2024–25:
- nearly 9 in 10 (86%) of the 58,600 Palliative care hospitalisations occurred in public hospitals
- 1 in 2 (47%) hospitalisations for Palliative care had a neoplasm-related (cancer-related) principal diagnosis, with Malignant neoplasm of bronchus and lung accounting for 7.4% of Palliative care hospitalisations.
Mental health care
In 2024–25:
- 3 in 5 (60%) of the 358,000 Mental health care hospitalisations occurred in private hospitals
- females accounted for 57% of all Mental health care hospitalisations.
Over the last five years, from 2020–21 to 2024–25, Mental health care hospitalisations in public hospitals has remained stable (143,000), with an annual average decrease of 1.9% (232,000 to 215,000) observed in private hospitals.
These data are sourced from the National Hospital Morbidity database. Data on the type of care provided are available in Admitted patient care 2024–25: Why did people receive care [XLSX 108kB] and Admitted patient care 2024–25: What services were provided? [XLSX 212kB].
Data tables are available in the Data downloads section.
Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.
More information, appendices and caveat information are available in the About the data section.
Acute care
An episode of Acute care for an admitted patient is one in which the principal clinical intent is to do one or more of the following:
- manage labour (obstetric)
- cure illness or provide definitive treatment of injury
- perform surgery
- relieve symptoms of illness or injury (excluding palliative care)
- reduce severity of illness or injury
- protect against exacerbation and/or complication of an illness and/or injury which could threaten life or normal functions
- perform diagnostic or therapeutic procedures.
Rehabilitation care
Rehabilitation care is care in which the primary clinical purpose or treatment goal is improvement in the functioning of a patient with an impairment, activity limitation, or participation restriction due to a health condition.
Rehabilitation care is always:
- delivered under the management of or informed by a clinician with specialised expertise in rehabilitation
- evidenced by an individualised multidisciplinary management plan, which is documented in the patient’s medical record, which includes negotiated goals within specified time frames and formal assessment of functional ability.
Palliative care
Palliative care is defined as care in which the primary clinical purpose or treatment goal is optimisation of the quality of life of a patient with an active and advanced life-limiting illness. The patient will have complex physical, psychosocial and/or spiritual needs.
Palliative care is always:
- delivered under the management of or informed by a clinician with specialised expertise in palliative care
- evidenced by an individualised multidisciplinary assessment and management plan, which is documented in the patient's medical record that covers the physical, psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of the patient and negotiated goals.
Mental health care
Mental health care is defined in this publication as care in which the primary clinical purpose or treatment goal is improvement in the symptoms and/or psychosocial, environmental, and physical functioning related to a patient’s mental disorder.
Mental health care:
- is delivered under the management of, or regularly informed by, a clinician with specialised expertise in mental health
- is evidenced by an individualised formal mental health assessment and the implementation of a documented mental health plan
- may include significant psychosocial components, including family and carer support.
Mental health care differs from mental health-related care reported in the AIHW Mental health online report. A hospitalisation is classified as mental health-related if:
- it had a mental health-related principal diagnosis, which, for admitted patient care in this report, is defined as a principal diagnosis that is either:
- a diagnosis that falls within the section on Mental and behavioural disorders (Chapter 5) in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 11th revision, Australian Modification (ICD‑10‑AM) (codes F00–F99), or
- a number of other selected diagnoses (see the technical information for a full list of applicable diagnoses), and/or
- it included any specialised psychiatric care.
For 2023–24, mental health care refers to hospitalisations for which the care type was reported as Mental health. The care type Mental health was introduced from 1 July 2015. Prior to this, mental health admitted patient activity was assigned to one of the other care types.
Qualified newborn
A day is considered qualified for health insurance benefits purposes when a newborn meet at least 1 of the following criteria:
- the newborn is the second or subsequent live born infant of a multiple birth, whose mother is currently an admitted patient
- the newborn is admitted to an intensive care facility in a hospital, being a facility approved by the Australian Government Minister for the purpose of the provision of special care
- the newborn is admitted to or remains in hospital without its mother.
A newborn admission to hospital can occur at any time within the first 9 days of life, including at the time of birth.
Unqualified newborn
The reporting of unqualified newborns has changed over time and varies across jurisdictions. Prior to 2017–18, newborn episodes involving unqualified care were routinely excluded from national reporting on the basis that they did not meet admission criteria for all purposes. However, due to changes in Newborn care practices (such as, care being provided to unqualified newborns on the ward rather than in a special care nursery) stakeholders have expressed interest in the reporting of all newborn episodes, regardless of qualification status.