Intervention and treatment
Intervention and treatment services serve to minimise the impact of injury and disease, including ear or hearing related conditions. Measuring the frequency and types of treatment that First Nations people receive for ear disease can provide a better understanding of the treatment pathway. Such information indicates the use of health services and costs and can be used to better target preventive health services in areas of greatest need.
Information on intervention and treatment services is primarily available from hospital settings, where patients may go to seek urgent care, or to have specialised surgery or procedures. This chapter covers the following information:
- emergency department visits for diseases of the ear and mastoid process (data tables 3.1a–3.1g)
- hospital admissions for diseases of the ear and mastoid process and injuries to the ear (data tables 3.2a–3.2j)
- ear or hearing related hospital procedures (data tables 3.3.1a–3.3.1g)
- middle ear related hospital procedures (data tables 3.3.2a–3.3.2g)
- waiting times for elective myringotomy surgery – incision in the eardrum to relieve pressure or drain fluid (data tables 3.4.1a–3.4.1e)
- waiting times for elective myringoplasty surgery – the repair of a hole in the eardrum (data tables 3.4.2a–3.4.2e)
- First nations ear related surgeries delivered by the Eye and Ear Surgical Support Program (data table 3.5).
Data tables in Excel spreadsheet format can be accessed at the Data tab.
About the data
Information in this chapter comes from the AIHW National Hospital Morbidity Database, the AIHW National Non-admitted Patient Emergency Department Care Database and the Eye and Ear Surgical Support Program (EESS).
More information about each of these data sources is provided in the following subsections.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged in early 2020, all non-urgent elective surgery was temporarily suspended from 25 March 2020 in both public and private hospitals. The impact of this may be apparent in data on elective hospital procedures and waiting times.