Treatment services

The measures and the data

The section includes the measures and data on eye health treatment services including hospitalisations for eye diseases, injuries and eye procedures; cataract surgery rates and waiting times; and the treatment of trachoma, trichiasis and refractive error.

Measures Data source Latest data Data included
3.1 Hospitalisations for diseases of the eye NHMD 2014–16 Diagnosis, Indigenous status, time trend, age, sex, region, state, PHN
3.2 Hospitalisations for injuries to the eye NHMD 2014–16 Diagnosis, Indigenous status, time trend, age, sex, region, state, PHN
3.3 Hospitalisations for eye procedures NHMD 2014–16 AR-DRG, Indigenous status, time trend, age, sex, region, state, PHN

3.4 Cataract surgery rate

 NHMD 2014–16 Indigenous status, time trend, age, sex, region, state, need, PHN
3.5 Cataract surgical coverage rate NEHS 2016 Indigenous status, region
3.6.1 Cataract surgery waiting times–percentile NHMD 2015–16 Time trend, Indigenous status, region, state
3.6.2 Cataract surgery waiting times–days NHMD 2015–16 Time trend, Indigenous status, region, state

3.7.1 Trachoma treatment coverage

 TSR 2016 Age, time trend, state

3.7.2 Trichiasis treatment coverage

 TSR 2016 Age, time trend, state
3.8 Treatment of refractive error NEHS 2016 Indigenous status

3.9 Spectacles dispensed under state schemes

 State admin 2016-17 State, need

Notes:

  1. NEHS—2016 National Eye Health Survey; TSR—Trachoma Surveillance Report; NHMD—National Hospital Morbidity Database; State admin—State government administrative data
  2. For more details about the measures and the data see Technical notes and data sources (295KB PDF).
  3. Data tables: Treatment services (836KB XLS)

Key points

  • In 2014–16, around 7,400 Indigenous Australians were hospitalised for eye diseases and 1,700 for eye injuries.
  • Indigenous Australians had lower age-standardised rates of hospitalisation for eye diseases than non-Indigenous Australians (11 and 14 per 1,000, respectively), but more than 3 times the rate for eye injuries (1.4 and 0.4 per 1,000, respectively).
  • Cataract surgery rates have increased for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians over the last 10 years.
  • Rates of cataract surgery for Indigenous Australians in 2014–16, however, were lower than for non-Indigenous Australians, despite having higher prevalence rates for the disease.
  • The median number of days waited for cataract surgery in 2014–16 was longer for Indigenous Australians (152) than for non-Indigenous Australians (93).
  • Nearly half (49%) of non-Indigenous Australians had cataract surgery within 90 days compared with 39% of Indigenous Australians.
  • In 2016–17, the number of spectacles dispensed to Indigenous Australians under state schemes was 2,076 in Victoria (38 per 1,000) and 5,936 in Queensland (28 per 1,000), while in New South Wales 5,506 Indigenous Australians received spectacles (24 per 1,000).