Admitted patients access

Length of stay is the number of days between admission to hospital, and separation. The Average Length of Stay (ALOS) is calculated as the total number of patient days reported for the hospital (or group of hospitals), divided by the number of hospitalisations. 

OECD indicator: Length of stay

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) presents comparative information on the ALOS for overnight hospitalisations as an indicator of efficiency. The comparability of international ALOS may be affected by differences in definitions of hospitals, collection periods and admission practices.

Performance indicator: Average length of stay for selected AR-DRGs

The ALOS for selected AR-DRGs is an indicator of Efficiency and sustainability under the Australian Health Performance Framework (AHPF).

Explore the data

In the data visualisation below, you can view the ALOS by selected medical procedures, by state and territory, and by type of hospital (peer group).

National trends

In 2017–18:

• the ALOS for overnight hospitalisations in Australia was 5.3 days, which was lower than the OECD average length of stay of 7.3 days
• there were notable differences (more than 1 day) in the ALOS between public and private hospitals for 7 of the 20 selected AR-DRGs. For example, the ALOS for Chronic obstructive airways disease, minor complexity was 2.8 days for public hospitals and 5.8 days for private hospitals.

Between 2013–14 and 2017–18:

• the overall ALOS for public and private hospitals combined decreased by an average of 1.7% per year from 2.9 days to 2.7 days
• for overnight hospitalisations, the ALOS in all hospitals combined was relatively stable between 2013–14 and 2017–18, increasing by an average of 0.3% each year over this period
• for Public acute hospitals, the ALOS excluding same day hospitalisations decreased from 5.5 to 5.2 days over the same period.

Significant changes in ALOS over time may be related to changes in admission practices and improvements in the coverage of reporting.

A specialised service unit is a facility or unit dedicated to the treatment or care of patients with particular conditions or characteristics, such as an intensive care unit.

In 2017–18, the most common specialised service units offered by public hospitals were:

• Domiciliary care (provided by 354 public hospitals)
• Nursing home care (provided by 285 public hospitals)
• Obstetric/maternity services (provided by 227 public hospitals)

There were 82 intensive care units (level III and above), and 32 Neonatal intensive care units (level III and above).

Explore the data

The data visualisation below provides a list of selected services provided by individual hospitals, including specialised care units, in the 2017-18 reporting period.

The information about services provided by a particular hospital is intended as a general guide only. There is the potential for some omissions or errors in this information and readers should contact a hospital directly for the latest advice on the services available.

A list of the types of specialised units is available in the more information about the data section below.

The numbers of public and private hospitals in Australia can vary over time, reflecting the opening or closing of hospitals, the reclassification of hospitals as non‑hospital facilities (or vice-versa) and the amalgamation of existing hospitals. In addition, the number of hospitals reported can be affected by jurisdictional variations in administrative and/or reporting arrangements and is not necessarily a measure of the number of physical hospital buildings or campuses.

National trends

Public hospitals

In 2017–18:

• there were 693 public hospitals in 2017–18 and of these, 674 provided admitted patient care data
• about 25% of public hospitals (179) were located in Major cities. The greatest number of public hospitals was reported for Outer regional areas  (210, or 30%)
• most of the larger public hospitals are located in the more populated areas, and this is evidenced by the number of hospital beds that were located in each remoteness area.

Between 2013–14 and 2017–18:

• there were 693 public hospitals in 2017–18 compared with 747 in 2013–14. Much of this decrease was due to the reclassification of 46 establishments in Queensland between 2013–14 and 2014–15.

Private hospitals

Between 2012–13 and 2016–17, the number of private hospitals reporting to the PHEC rose from 601 to 657. Numbers of private hospitals increased for all jurisdictions. Counts of private hospitals can vary, depending on the source of the information - refer to the 'More information about the data' section below for information.

Types of public hospitals providing admitted patient care

Various types of public hospitals provide care to admitted patients including Principal referral hospitals, Public acute group A hospitals, Very small hospitals, and Subacute and non-acute hospitals. Hospital type (peer group) is a classification of public hospitals into groups of similar hospitals by the types of services provided.

• 31 Principal referral hospitals accounted for the highest proportion of public hospital hospitalisations (2.5 million hospitalisations, or 37%) and public hospital patient days (7.6 million patient days, or 38%)
• 63 Public acute group A hospitals accounted for a further 33% of hospitalisations and 31% of patient days
• 110 Very small hospitals accounted for fewer than 1% of both hospitalisations and patient days
• 37 Subacute and non-acute hospitals accounted for 1% of hospitalisations and 4% of patient days, with an average length of stay of 13.4 days.

Number of hospital beds available for admitted patient care

The ratio of available beds to the population does not necessarily indicate the accessibility of hospital services. A hospital can provide services for patients who usually reside in other areas of the state or territory, or in other jurisdictions. The patterns of bed availability across regions may also reflect the availability of other health-care services and patterns of disease and injury.

Public hospitals

In 2017–18:

• there were 61,647 available beds in public hospitals, with 2,161 (3.5%) of these in public psychiatric hospitals
• almost 86% of beds in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) were available for overnight stay patients
• the proportion of beds available for same-day patients in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) ranged from 9% in New South Wales to 20% in Queensland
• available beds per 1,000 population in Public hospitals (other than psychiatric) ranged from 2.2 per 1,000 in Western Australia, to 2.6 per 1,000 in New South Wales, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory
• nationally, about 68% of public hospital beds were located in Major cities (42,000 beds) and 18% were located in Inner regional areas (11,300 beds)
• the number of public hospital beds per 1,000 population ranged from 2.4 beds per 1,000 population in Major cities to 4.0 beds per 1,000 population in Remote areas
• Australia had 3.9 beds per 1,000 population in public and private hospitals compared with an average of 4.7 beds per 1,000 population for countries analysed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and ranked in the middle of the 35 OECD and other selected countries.

Between 2013–14 and 2017–18:

• public hospital bed numbers rose by an average of 1.3% per year, from 58,600 to almost 62,000 beds—about one third the rate of average annual increase in public hospitalisations over the same period
• public hospital beds per 1,000 population were relatively stable, ranging between 2.5 to 2.6 beds per 1,000 population over the same period.

Private hospitals

Between 2012–13 and 2016–17:

• private hospital bed numbers rose by an average of 3.6% per year (from 29,800 to 34,300)
• the number of beds per 1,000 population increased from 1.31 to 1.42 per 1,000, or by an average of 2.0% per year
• the number of licensed beds in Other private hospitals (those that do not specialise in same-day care) increased by an average of 3.6% per year, and the number of licensed beds per 1,000 population in Other private hospitals rose from around 1.18 to 1.28 beds per 1,000
• the number of licensed beds/chairs in Private free-standing day hospital facilities increased by 3.0% each year
• about 34,300 licensed beds were reported for private hospitals, with 3,310 (9.6%) of these in Private free-standing day hospital facilities.

The accessibility of non-admitted patient care services can vary depending on the demographics of the patient. This section presents information on the variation of access to these services by demographics for 2017–18.  Included is information on the patients:

• age and sex
• Indigenous status
• remoteness area of usual residence
• socioeconomic group

In the data visualisation below you can explore information on hospitalisations by  for 2017–18 and private hospitals for 2016–17, including details on the numbers of full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff.

National trends

Age group and sex

Between 2013–14 and 2017–18, there were large increases in hospitalisations for people aged 65–74, 85 and over, specifically:

• for people aged 65–74, hospitalisations rose by 26% overall, an average increase of 5.9% each year. This was faster than the population growth for this age group of about 4.1% each year over the same period
• for people aged 85 and over, hospitalisations rose by 20% overall, an average increase of 4.7% each year, compared with the population growth for this age group of about 3.5% each year over the same period.

The apparent decrease in hospitalisations for patients aged under 1 is due to a change in the assignment of qualification status for newborn care in New South Wales (because these data do not include Newborns without at least one qualified day).

In 2017–18, 5.9 million hospitalisations were for females (52%), and 5.3 million hospitalisations were for males. In particular:

• women accounted for 68% of hospitalisations for people aged 20–39—the age range that includes most hospitalisations for childbirth
• females also accounted for more patient days than males (15.9 million and 14.4 million patient days, respectively)
• people aged 65 and over (who make up about 15% of the population) accounted for 42% of hospitalisations and 49% of patient days
• people aged 85 and over (who make up about 2% of the population) accounted for about 7% of hospitalisations and 13% of patient days.

Separation (hospitalisation) rates

In 2017–18, overall there were 457 hospitalisations per 1,000 population (age-specific rate), with higher rates for females than males in the 15–54 age groups, and higher rates for males in the other age groups. Separation rates increased markedly with age for both males and females aged 55 and over.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

In 2017–18:

• 551,000 hospitalisations (4.9%) were reported for people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin, who represent about 3.3% of the Australian population
• about 89% of hospitalisations for Indigenous Australians were from public hospitals (493,000), compared with 58% of hospitalisations for other Australians
• for public hospitals, about 7.3% of hospitalisations were reported for Indigenous Australians. The majority of hospitalisations (92%) for Indigenous Australians were reported as Aboriginal but not Torres Strait Islander origin, 4% were reported as Torres Strait Islander but not Aboriginal origin and 4% as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin.

Separation (hospitalisation) rates

In 2017–18:

• there were 1,071 hospitalisations per 1,000 population for Indigenous Australians— about 2.6 times the separation rate for other Australians 
• about 80% of this difference is due to the markedly higher rate of hospitalisations for dialysis for Indigenous Australians compared with other Australians (572 and 44 per 1,000 population, respectively), which also contributed to higher rates of same-day hospitalisations for Indigenous Australians compared with for other Australians
• for Indigenous Australians, there were 287 overnight acute hospitalisations per 1,000 population, which was almost twice the rate for other Australians (146 per 1,000).

Remoteness area

In 2017–18:

• the numbers of hospitalisations per 1,000 population were highest for people living in Very remote and Remote areas (815 and 536 per 1,000 population, respectively)
• the standardised separation rate ratio (SRR) for people living in Very remote areas was 1.9, indicating that the separation rate was 90% higher than the national separation rate
• for public hospitals, hospitalisation rates ranged from 691 per 1,000 for people living in Very remote areas to 232 per 1,000 for patients living in Major cities
• for private hospitals, hospitalisation rates ranged from 96 per 1,000 for people living in Remote areas to 183 per 1,000 for people living in Major cities, in part, this may reflect the distribution of private hospitals across remoteness areas.

Socioeconomic status

In 2017–18

• hospitalisation rates varied across SES groups and between public and private hospitals
• for public hospitals, the highest hospitalisation rates were for patients living in areas classified as being the lowest (most disadvantaged) SES group (320 hospitalisations per 1,000 population), and the SRR for this group was 1.3, indicating that the hospitalisation rate was 30% higher than the national hospitalisation rate
• for private hospitals, the highest hospitalisation rates were for patients living in areas classified as being the highest (least disadvantaged) SES group (242 per 1,000).