Emergency department care activity

An emergency department (ED) presentation occurs following the arrival of the patient at the ED, and is the earliest occasion of being registered clinically or triaged.

Explore the data

Explore the number of presentations to Australia’s public hospital EDs in 2018–19 in the data visualisation below.

Information is presented by: 

• Age and sex
• Indigenous status

The data can also be explored by:

• Overall national trends
• State and territory
• Local Hospital Network (LHN) and hospital (where data is available)

National trends

Age and sex

• ED presentations were generally evenly split between males and females. However, for those aged 0–14, substantially more boys (56%) than girls (44%) presented to ED in 2018–19.
• Patients aged 4 and under (who make up less than 7% of the population), accounted for 11% of all ED presentations. Males accounted for 56% of presentations for patients aged 4 and under.
• Patients aged 65 and over (who make up about 15% of the population) accounted for 22% of all ED presentations in 2018–19.

Indigenous status

• About 7.1% of ED presentations (just under 587,000) were for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Indigenous Australians), who represent about 3.3% of the Australian population.
• In all jurisdictions, the presentation rate per 1,000 population was greater for Indigenous Australians compared to Other Australians.

Remoteness area of usual residence 

• 63% of ED presentations were reported for people living in Major cities—who make up about 71% of the Australian population, with about 292  presentations per 1,000 people.
• People living in Remote and Very remote areas (who make up about 2% of the population) accounted for more than 3% of presentations.

Socioeconomic status of area of usual residence

• Almost 24% of ED presentations were reported for patients living in areas classified as being the lowest (most disadvantaged) SES group, with about 392 presentations per 1,000 people.
• The smallest number of presentations was reported for patients living in areas classified as being the highest (least disadvantaged) SES group (14% of the total), with about 241 presentations per 1,000 people.

Patients present to the emergency department (ED) for various reasons. This section presents information on care provided in EDs by:

• Urgency of care
• Mode of arrival
• Reason for care (principal diagnosis)
• How care was completed

Explore the data

In the data visualisation below you can explore ED presentations by ICD-10-AM principal diagnosis chapter, age group and sex.

National trends

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 2018–19 there were 8.3 million ED presentations, and of these:

• 0.8% were assigned a triage category of Resuscitation
• 13.6% were assigned to Emergency
• 38.0% were assigned to Urgent
• 39.2% were assigned to Semi-urgent
• 8.3% were assigned to Non-urgent

Between 2014–15 and 2018–19 the proportion of presentations assigned a triage category of Urgent have increased, and the proportions assigned the triage categories of Semi-urgent or Non-urgent have decreased.

Arrival mode

The mode of arrival is whether a patient arrives by ambulance, or another form of transport. This section presents information on how people arrived to the ED.

In 2018–19, the majority of presentations to EDs (73%) had an arrival mode of Other which indicates that the patient either walked into the ED, or came by private transport, public transport, community transport, or taxi.

Principal diagnosis

In 2018–19:

• a principal diagnoses of Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes accounted for 1 in 4 presentations (2 million). These include fractures, burns, toxic effects of medicinal and non-medicinal substances drug overdoses (accidental or otherwise, legal or prescription)
• the 20 most common 3-character ICD-10-AM principal diagnoses accounted for about 33% of principal diagnoses reported
• the most common 3-character ICD-10-AM principal diagnoses were Abdominal and pelvic pain (4.6%), followed by Pain in throat and chest (4.1%).

How care was completed

The episode end status describes the status of the patient at the conclusion of the non-admitted patient episode in the emergency department, including whether the patient was subsequently admitted to the ED.

In the data visualisation, you can explore ED visits by type of presentation.

In 2018–19:

• 31% of all presentations were Admitted to this hospital at the conclusion of treatment in the ED and this proportion varied slightly across states and territories (26–37%)
• more than 65% of patients aged 85 and over were Admitted to this hospital compared with fewer than 18% of patients aged 0–24
• 60% of all presentations reported an episode end status of Departed without being admitted or referred, and this proportion was higher for less urgent triage categories. For example, 11% of Resuscitation patients Departed without being admitted or referred, compared with 82% of Non-urgent patients.