Outpatient clinics
Non-admitted patient care provided in public hospitals includes care provided in outpatient clinics at which patients consult specialist medical practitioners, or have diagnostic or other procedures, or are provided with allied health or specialist nursing care, without being admitted to hospital.
Outpatient care can also include the dispensing of medicines to patients not admitted to the hospital, and district nursing and some community health services provided by hospitals; those activities are not included in the information presented.
Changes in coverage and in reporting arrangements between 2012–13 and 2014–15 mean that data on outpatient care cannot be compared over time.
In 2014–15, 34.9 million outpatient service events were provided by 610 public hospitals and 41 other services (such as local hospital networks and private hospitals that provide public patient services).
In 2014–15, about 46% of outpatient service events occurred in Allied health and/or clinical nurse specialist clinics and 30% in Medical consultation clinics (Figure 13).
Figure 13: Outpatient service events by clinic class, public hospitals, 2014–15
About 56% of outpatient service events were for females and 31% of service events were for people aged 65 and over (Figure 14).
About 4.5% of outpatient service events were for Indigenous Australians.
People living in Major cities accounted for about 69% of outpatient service events.
For more information, see Non-admitted patient care 2014–15: Australian hospital statistics (AIHW 2016c).
Figure 14: Outpatient service events by age group and sex, public hospitals, 2014–15
References
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) 2016c. Non-admitted patient care 2014–15: Australian hospital statistics. Health services series no. 69. Cat. no. HSE 174. Canberra: AIHW.