Non-admitted patient activity

Non-admitted patients do not undergo a hospital’s formal admission process but instead receive services as outpatients. The types of services which non-admitted patients may access include procedural clinics, medical consultation clinics, diagnostic services, and allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics.

In 2020–21, non-admitted patient activity is measured using data from 2 different sources:

clinic-level data from National Non-admitted patient care aggregate Database (NNAPC(agg)D) are used to describe overall non-admitted patient care reported
episode-level data from National Non-admitted Patient episode-level Database (NNAP(el)D) accounts for 75% of non-admitted patient service events. These service events are used to provide more detailed information, including:
- patient characteristics of those who used these services
- how the services were delivered
- the type of care provided.

Every year many Australians receive services via ‘outpatient’ or non-admitted patient clinics. These services are often associated with an emergency or admitted patient episode for which diagnostic or follow-up care is required without needing the person to be admitted to hospital. The types of care they receive include consultations with specialist medical practitioners, the provision of diagnostic or other procedures, and allied health or clinical nurse specialist services.

A non-admitted patient service event is defined as an interaction between one or more health-care providers with a non-admitted patient in an outpatient clinic or other setting, which includes therapeutic and/or clinical content and results in a dated entry in the patient’s medical record.

Explore the data

At the clinic-level, the data visualisation below provides information on non-admitted patient service events by:

state or territory of service provider
peer group
clinic type.

At the episode-level, the data visualisation below provides information on service events by selected patient characteristics:

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

Non-admitted service events

All data in these visualisations are available for download in the Data & downloads section of the MyHospitals website.

Peer group

This table shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2020–21. Data is presented by measure (hospitals and service events), data source and clinic type. National, state and territory data is available. In 2020–21, there were 21,655,333 non-admitted patient service events for Principal referral and Women’s and children’s hospitals.

Age and sex

This bar graph shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2020–21. Data is presented by age group and sex. National data is available. In 2020–21, the largest age group for males was 70–74 with 1,375,324 non-admitted patient service events, and for females was 30–34 with 2,160,647 non-admitted patient service events.

Indigenous status

This bar graph shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2020–21. Data is presented by Indigenous status. National, state and territory data is available. In 2020–21, there were 1,737,942 non-admitted patient service events for individuals of Aboriginal but not Torres Strait Islander origin, 93,923 non-admitted patient service events for individuals of Torres Strait Islander but not Aboriginal origin and 107,226 non-admitted patient service events for individuals of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander origin.

Remoteness

This table shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2020–21. Data is presented by remoteness of area of usual residence. National data is available. In 2020–21, the number of non-admitted patient service events varied by remoteness with 22,808,031 service events in Major cities and 529,437 service events in Remote areas.

Socioeconomic status

This table shows the number of non-admitted patient service events in 2020–21. Data is presented by socioeconomic status of area of usual residence. National data is available. In 2020–21, the number of non-admitted patient service events varied by socioeconomic status with 7,233,948 service events in category 1 (most disadvantaged) and 6,207,521 service events in category 4 (out of 5).

Highlights

Clinic level service events

In 2020–21, 602 public hospitals and 41 other services (including services provided at the Local Hospital Network level, state-wide level, and private hospitals that provide public hospital services) provided non-admitted patient care.

46.8 million service events were reported, 23% more than were reported in 2019–20. The increase was likely due to the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.
almost 1 in 2 (46%) were provided by Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals
a further 1 in 4 were provided by Public acute group A hospitals (26%).

Episode-level service events

In 2020–21, 507 public hospitals and 13 other services reported service events at the episode level.

35.1 million non-admitted patient service events were reported at the episode-level to the NNAP(el)D
these accounted for 75% of total non-admitted patient service events
Almost 1 in 2 (48%) episode-level non‑admitted patient service events were provided by Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals
Just over 1 in 4 were provided by Public acute group A hospitals (28%).

Patient characteristics

Episode-level data contains information about the people who used non-admitted patient services.

Of the 35.1 million non-admitted patient service events:

over 1 in 2 (55%) service events (19.3 million) were provided to females
a higher proportion of services were provided to males in the age groups 0–14 and 60–84, whereas a higher proportion of services were provided to females in the age group 15–59
just over 1 in 20 (5.5%) service events were for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians
2 in 3 (65%) of service events were for people living in Major cities
1 in 5 (21%) service events were provided to people living in the lowest socioeconomic areas.

More information about the data Expand

Non-admitted patient clinics are defined by the type of clinician who provided the service and the nature of the service provided.

Tier 2 Clinic Class categorises a hospital’s non-admitted services into classes which are generally based on the nature of the service provided and the type of clinician providing the service.

Clinics are first categorised by the nature of the non-admitted service provided. The major categories are:

Procedural clinics—which provide minor surgical and non-surgical procedures (that do not require the patient to be admitted) by a surgeon or other medical specialist
Medical consultation clinics—typically provided by a medical or nurse practitioner. There may also be input from allied health personnel and/or clinical nurse specialists
Diagnostic service clinics—which provide diagnostic services within a specific field of medicine or condition. These services include imaging, screening, clinical measurement and pathology
Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics—which provide services by an allied health professional or clinical nurse specialist.

Clinics are further categorised by the type of clinician providing the service, usually based on the speciality or profession of the clinician.

For example:

a clinic run by a cardiothoracic surgeon who sees patients for consultations before and after cardiac surgery is classified to the cardiothoracic class
a clinic run by an obstetrician who sees women for consultations before they give birth is classified to the obstetrics class
a clinic run by a physiotherapist who sees patients for consultations and treatments is classified to the physiotherapy class.

There are also a number of classes for specialist clinics which treat patients with specific conditions. For example, there are clinic types for specialist burns clinics, transplant clinics and cystic fibrosis clinics.

Explore the data

The data visualisation below provides information on non-admitted clinics and service events by:

Tier 2 clinic class of the service event
state and territory of the hospital providing the service
service delivery setting.

Highlights

Of the 46.8 million total service events reported to NNAPC(Agg)D, in 2020–21:

Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics accounted for just over 2 in 5 (44%) service events (20.4 million)
Medical consultation clinics accounted for just over 1 in 4 (26%) service events (12.2 million)
Diagnostic services accounted for almost 1 in 5 (19%) service events (9.0 million)
Procedural clinics accounted for just over 1 in 10 (11%) service events (5.3 million).

In total, 643 public hospitals or other services reported non-admitted patient service events in at least one clinic type. Just under one-quarter of these hospitals (23%) were major hospitals (Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals, Public acute group A hospitals and Public acute group B hospitals), although these hospitals provided 80% of all non-admitted patient service events.

Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics

For service events delivered in Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics:

1 in 10 (12%) were provided in COVID-19 response clinics (2.5 million service events)
1 in 10 (11%) were delivered in Midwifery and maternity clinics (2.3 million)
1 in 10 (8.4%) were delivered in Primary health care clinics (1.7 million).

Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinic service events were provided in 613 public hospitals or other services.

Medical consultation clinics

Of service events delivered in Medical consultation clinics:

just under 1 in 10 (9.3%) were delivered in Orthopaedics clinics (1.1 million service events)
around 1 in 14 (7.4%) were delivered in Medical oncology (consultation) clinics (900,000 service events)

There were 950,000 service events in Obstetric clinics for management of pregnancy with or without complications.

Medical consultation clinic service events were provided in 441 public hospitals or other services.

Diagnostic services

Of service events delivered in Diagnostic clinics:

Just under 1 in 3 (30%) were provided in COVID-19 response diagnostics clinics (2.7 million service events)
2 in 5 (41%) were provided in Pathology (microbiology, haematology, biochemistry) clinics (3.6 million service events). Almost all service events of these clinic types were reported by New South Wales.

There was also great variability in the provision of other services through diagnostic services clinics across states and territories. This reflects the different arrangements for provision of these services across jurisdictions and differences in data collection and reporting for these services. Diagnostic clinic service events were provided in 371 hospitals or other services.

Procedural clinics

Of the 5.3 million service events delivered in Procedural clinics:

almost 2 in 5 (38%) were provided by COVID-19 vaccination clinics (around 2 million service events)
1 in 5 (21%) were provided in Dental clinics
almost 1 in 7 (15%) were provided in Radiation therapy (treatment) clinics
1 in 10 (10%) were provided in Chemotherapy (treatment) clinics.

Procedural clinic service events were provided in 462 public hospitals or other services.

COVID-19 related services and activity

In March 2020, the Independent Hospitals Pricing Authority introduced data reporting requirements to accommodate the emerging situation with COVID-19. Four new Tier 2 clinic classes were added to capture activity associated with providing patients with a COVID-19 vaccination as well as the diagnosis or treatment of patients with COVID-19 in the outpatient or non-admitted hospital setting.

The new Tier 2 clinic classes are:

10.21 COVID-19 vaccination—for vaccinations provided to admitted and non-admitted patients
20.57 COVID-19 response—clinics where a medical officer or nurse practitioner provide the majority of COVID-19 related services
40.63 COVID-19 response—clinics where an allied health professional or clinical nurse specialist provide the majority of COVID-19 related services
30.09 COVID-19 response diagnostics—diagnostic testing as a result of the Australian Health Sector Emergency Response Plan for Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Not all jurisdictions reported service events against these new clinic classes.

In 2020–21:

Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics accounted for just over 2 in 5 (44%) service events (20.4 million)
Medical consultation clinics accounted for just over 1 in 4 (26%) service events (12.2 million). All major hospitals reported service events for at least one of these clinics
Diagnostic services accounted for almost 1 in 5 (19%) service events (9.0 million)
Procedural clinics accounted for just over 1 in 10 (11%) service events (5.3 million).

Most major hospitals—Principal referral and women’s and children’s hospitals, Public acute group A hospitals and Public acute group B hospitals—reported service events for at least one of these clinics.

More information about the data Expand