How is hospital activity measured?
Hospital activity is measured by the number of services provided by hospitals, including:
- hospitalisations in public and private hospitals for admitted patient care
- presentations to public hospital emergency departments
- service events for non-admitted patient in public hospitals
- admissions from elective surgery waiting lists in public hospitals.
In recent years, activity in all sectors of the Australian hospital system has increased each year, reflecting an increased demand for services. However, between 2018–19 and 2019–20, hospital activity decreased due to the impact of COVID-19 on the healthcare system.
Hospitalisations
In 2019–20:
- there were 11.1 million hospitalisations in Australia, including 6.9 million same-day hospitalisations and 4.3 million overnight hospitalisations
- the number of hospitalisations decreased by 2.8% (compared to 2018–19) due to the impact of COVID-9 on Australia's healthcare system
- the number of same-day hospitalisations decreased by 2.1% and overnight hospitalisations decreased by 4.0%
- hospitalisations in private hospitals decreased more than public hospitals for both same-day and overnight hospitalisations.
The decrease in activity is a contrast to previous years: between 2014–15 and 2018–19, same-day and overnight hospitalisations were increasing—same-day hospitalisations increased by 3.4%, on average, per year and overnight hospitalisations increased by 1.2%, on average, per year.
The greater decrease in overnight hospitalisations, particularly for private hospitals, was most likely attributable to the restrictions placed on selected Category 2 and Category 3 elective surgeries due to COVID-19.
Emergency department presentations
In 2019–20 and 2020–21, emergency department activity was impacted by COVID-19. Further information about the impact of COVID-19 on emergency department activity is available in the Emergency department activity section of the MyHospitals site.
Just over 24,000 people on average sought treatment in public hospital emergency departments each day in 2020–21. This figure increased 6.9% between 2019–20 and 2020–21 after a decrease of 1.4% between 2018–19 and 2019–20. This equates to an increase in presentations from 319 to 342 per 1,000 population between 2019–20 and 2020–21.
Just over 80% of emergency department presentations occur between 8am and 10pm.
In 2020–21, 24% patients sought treatment for injury and poisoning-related diagnoses, up from 23% in 2019–20, and 6% for a respiratory disorder, down from 8% in 2019–20.
The most common diagnoses were Abdominal and pelvic pain, Pain in throat and chest, Viral infection of unspecified site and Unknown and unspecified causes of morbidity.
Non-admitted patient services
Non-admitted patient services are provided by outpatient clinics in Australia’s public hospitals. These services include patients seeing specialist medical practitioners or allied health practitioners, or having diagnostic or other procedures.
In 2019–20, 38.2 million service events were provided in outpatient clinics. Of these:
- 48% (18.3 million) were in allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics
- 29% (11.1 million) were in medical consultation clinics
- 15% (5.7 million) were for diagnostic services
- 8.1% (3.1 million) were in procedural clinics.
Where do I find more information?
The latest data on admitted patient care is available for download below.
More information about the impact of COVID-19 on hospital activity are available in the Admitted patient care activity area of the MyHospitals site.