Highlights
Nationally, between 2014–15 and 2018–19 the number of presentations to public hospital EDs increased by 3.2% on average each year. However, in 2019–20, the number of ED presentations decreased by 1.4% compared to 2018–19.
ED presentations decreased
From March to June 2020:
- the average daily ED presentations initially increased from 24,600 in the week commencing 2 March 2020 to 26,000 average daily presentations in the week commencing 9 March 2020
- average daily presentations then decreased to 16,200 between the weeks commencing 9 March and the week commencing 30 March—a decrease of 38%
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the average daily ED presentations then steadily increased, though were still lower than in the comparable period in 2019. In the week beginning 22 June, there were, on average, 21,400 daily ED presentations—8.4% lower than for the comparable period in 2019.
Projected estimates of ED activity for 2019–20 suggest that, without the impact of COVID-19, the average daily number of ED presentations would have remained steady at around 23,000 presentations per day on average.
See Notes for information on how data on the projected presentations were calculated.
Urgency of care
When a patient presents to the ED, an experienced registered nurse or medical practitioner allocates them a triage category. This indicates the urgency of the patient’s need for medical and nursing care.
In the period from March to June 2020, the proportion of ED presentations assigned a triage category of Non-urgent increased, as a proportion of the total presentations per week.
- In the weeks between July 2019 and February 2020, Non-urgent ED presentations accounted for 7–8% of ED presentations.
- In the week commencing 2 March, Non-urgent ED presentations accounted for 9% of the weekly total of all ED presentations, which increased to 15% in the week commencing 16 March.
- Non-urgent ED presentations then declined to around 10–12% in April to June 2020.
This suggests that the volume of ED presentations with chronic or minor symptoms and for whom treatment could be delayed up to 2 hours increased during the COVID‑19 outbreak.
As a proportion of all triage categories, other triage categories (Resuscitation, Emergency, and Urgent) remained stable across the time period, however there was a slight decline in Urgent and Semi-urgent ED presentations from March to June 2020.
Suspected COVID-19 diagnoses in the emergency department
To accurately capture data about the presentation of suspected COVID-19 presentations, the states and territories introduced code classifications to identify confirmed, suspected, and ruled-out COVID-19 ED presentations under the advice of the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority (IHPA).
- Emergency use of U07.1 [COVID-19, virus identified] is assigned when COVID 19 has been confirmed by laboratory testing.
- Emergency use of U07.2 [COVID-19, virus not identified] is assigned when COVID-19 has been clinically diagnosed, but laboratory testing is inconclusive, not available or unspecified.
- Emergency use code U06.0 Emergency use of U06.0 [COVID-19, ruled out] is assigned when laboratory testing for COVID-19 produces a negative test result.
The use of these codes was not necessarily applied in a consistent manner across health facilities at the same and the presentations to ED for COVID-19 are likely to have been influenced by the nature of testing arrangements in each location. This means the data must be interpreted with caution.
More information can be found on the IHPA website.
Types of presentations
The outbreak of COVID‑19 infections and associated national and jurisdiction-based measures influenced the types of presentations to emergency departments in Australia from February 2020.
In the period from February to June 2020:
- the average daily presentations with a principal diagnosis of COVID 19 (including emergency use codes U07.1, U07.2 and U06.0) peaked at 785 in the week beginning on 23 March, and then fluctuated between 321 average daily presentations in the week beginning 6 April to 775 presentations on average per day in the week beginning 15 June.
- the average daily number of presentations with a principal diagnosis in the Respiratory body system group increased from 1,900 in the week beginning on 3 February to 3,500 in the week beginning on 9 March. The trend generally declined after this period.
- the average daily number of presentations with a principal diagnosis in the Infectious body system group rose sharply from 1,100 in the week beginning on 17 February to 2,400 presentations in the week beginning on 9 March. Presentations with this diagnosis declined to around 600 average daily presentations in the week of 20 February, largely being replaced by COVID-19 related presentations. This could be due to the use of the viral illness, unspecified code during this period.
The average daily number of presentations with a diagnosis related to Injury decreased from 5,800 in the week beginning 17 February and then declined to 3,400 in the week beginning on 30 March.
These trends are likely influenced by the increased restrictions on public and social gatherings and activities, including sporting events and travel restrictions, and availability of other health facilities.
More information about the data
Principal diagnosis
The Emergency department ICD-10-AM (eleventh edition) Principal diagnosis short list was used to group Principal diagnosis into Disease/body system group. For more information, see METeOR.
Body system groupings
Presentations were grouped into Emergency department ICD-10-AM (10th edition) Principal Diagnosis Short list Disease/body system group based on the principal diagnosis at the 3-character level.
The visualisation showing body system groups in 2018–19 and 2019–20 includes only presentations assigned a principal diagnosis.
Exceptions to the use of IHPA body system group are:
- Injury—in which all body system groups with the ‘Injury’ prefix were grouped into a single Injury category.
- COVID-19—the two emergency codes used for COVID-19 (U06.0 and U07.1) have been extracted and placed into a separate ‘COVID-19’ category.
Projected emergency department presentations
Projected emergency department presentations were calculated using the average daily emergency department presentations for each month over a six-year period from 2013–14 to 2018–19.
The average change per year was then applied onto the 2018–19 data to create a projection for average daily emergency presentations for each month in
2019–20.
What other information is available on COVID-19?
To explore the influence of the COVID‑19 on other health data, further releases are available on the AIHW website under COVID‑19 Resources and The impact of COVID-19 on Australia's health system.
Information on the total confirmed cases and active cases can be found on the Australian Government Department of Health website.
What other information is available on emergency departments?
Data are also available on emergency department presentations by hospital or LHN in My local area.
Appendixes and caveat information for this data is available to download in the Info and downloads section.
Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.