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 patients 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. But with the lifting of restrictions in 2020, hospital activity increased between 2019-20 to 2020-21, despite continuing restrictions in some local areas.
Overall, activity in all sectors of the Australian hospital system is increasing, reflecting an increasing demand for services.
Hospitalisations
Nationally, between 2014–15 and 2018–19, hospitalisations increased by an average of 3.3% per year—which was greater than the year-on-year increase in average growth in Australia’s population over the same period (1.1%). Same-day hospitalisations increased by 3.4%, on average, per year and overnight hospitalisations increased by 1.2%, on average, per year.
In 2019-20:
- there were 11.1 million hospitalisations in Australia, including 6.9 million same-day hospitalisations and 4.3 million overnight hospitalisations.
- due to the impacts of COVID-19 on Australia's health care system, the number of hospitalisations decreased by 2.8% (compared to 2018–19)
- 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 larger decrease in overnight hospitalisations, particularly for private hospitals, was likely attributable to the restrictions placed on selected Category 2 and Category 3 elective surgeries due to COVID-19.
In 2020–21:
- hospitalisations increased by 6.3% to 11.8 million, same-day hospitalisations increased by 8.1% and overnight hospitalisations increased by 3.3%
- hospitalisations in private hospitals increased more than public hospitals for both same-day and overnight hospitalisations.
Emergency department presentations
In 2021–22, there were 8.79 million presentations (24,100 daily average) to public hospital emergency departments, which was slightly lower than the total number of presentations in 2020–21 (8.81million) – a decrease of 0.2% overall.
From 2019–20 to 2020–21, the total presentations to emergency departments increased by 6.9% after a decrease of 1.4% between 2018–19 and 2019–20. Overall, there has been an increase in presentation from 321 per 1,000 population in 2017–18 to 339 per 1,000 population in 2021–22.
In 2021–22, 80% of emergency department presentations occurred between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.
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 2020–21, 46.8 million service events were provided in outpatient clinics. Of these:
- Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist intervention clinics provided nearly half (44%, 20.4 million)
- 1 in 4 (26%, 12.2 million) were provided in Medical consultation clinics
- 1 in 5 (19%, 9.0 million) were Diagnostic services clinics
- 1 in 10 (11%, 15.3 million) were provided in Procedural clinics
Admissions from elective surgery waiting lists
In 2021–22, the number of admissions from elective surgery waiting lists is lower compared with the last reporting year and five years ago.
In 2021–22:
- 623,000 patients were admitted for surgery from public hospital elective surgery waiting lists – a 17.5% decrease compared with 2020–21, and 16.9% decrease compared with 2017–18. The decrease in admissions in 2021–22 was likely due to restrictions implemented as part of the response to COVID-19 outbreaks throughout Australia and disruptions to hospital services because of COVID-19 which affected staff and patients.
- In 2021–22, three-quarters of all admissions for elective surgery from waiting lists were to Principal referral and Women’s and children’s hospitals and Public acute group A hospitals (40% and 34%, respectively).
Where do I find more information?
Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.
More information about the impact of COVID-19 on hospital activity are available in the Admitted patient care activity area of the MyHospitals site.
From 2019–20 to 2021–22, 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.