The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has published a report which details the increase in hospital admissions in Australia, finding that rates of admissions in public hospitals are particularly high.

 

The Australian hospital statics 2010-11 report shows that hospital admissions have increased from 8.5 million to 8.9 million between 2009-10 and 2010-11.

 

The report found that the increase in admissions was higher in public hospitals (4.1 per cent) than in private hospitals (3.9 per cent).

 

“This contrasts with the trend over 5 years which showed larger increases for private hospitals than for public hospitals,” said AIHW spokesperson Jenny Hargreaves.

 

Of the 8.9 million hospital admissions, 5.3 million were in public hospitals and 3.6 million were in private hospitals.

 

The increased admissions in public hospitals were accompanied by increased spending. Expenditure on public hospitals was $37 billion in 2010–11. This spending has been increasing faster than inflation, rising by an average of 5.9% each year between 2006-07 and 2010-11 and by 8.2% between 2009–10 and 2010–11.   

 

“People aged over 65 make up a large proportion of all hospital admissions—accounting for 38% of hospital admissions in 2010–11 and 48% of patient days,” Ms Hargreaves said.


“Admissions for people aged 85 and over increased significantly in the 5 years to 2010–11—rising by 41% compared with an increase of about 15% for all other age groups.”

 

Most of these admissions were for acute care (87%) or rehabilitation care (8%).

 

There were 2.2 million admissions that involved a surgical procedure in 2010-11. Of these, about 280,000 were emergency admissions and the remainder were elective

 

About two-thirds of elective admissions involving surgery were in private hospitals.

 

In contrast, about 87% of emergency admissions involving surgery were in public hospitals.

 

“Indigenous Australians had about twice the rate of emergency admissions involving surgery compared with other Australians,” Ms Hargreaves said.

 

The report can be found here