Admissions

Patient admissions

MyHospitals shows the data on separations (discharges, transfers or deaths at the end of an episode of care for an admitted patient in a hospital) reported for each hospital to the National Hospital Morbidity Database (NHMD). For the purposes of reporting on this website, separations are termed 'admissions'.

The number and type of admissions reported for each hospital is affected by variation in admission practices among states and territories and over time. They can also be affected by the organisation arrangements of the hospitals.

Statistics presented in this website exclude separations with a care type of 'newborn without qualified days' (essentially 'well' newborns), and records for 'hospital boarders' and 'posthumous organ procurement'.

Types of admissions

MyHospitals includes information on same day and overnight admissions, summary information on the type of admission, and information on the care type reported for admissions.

An admission is classified as same-day if the date of admission and date of separation were the same. An overnight admission is recorded when a patient is admitted and separates from a hospital on different dates. Admissions are presented in the following categories: specialist mental health, childbirth, medical (emergency), medical (other), surgical (emergency) and surgical (other).

• specialist mental health admissions—defined as all admissions at psychiatric hospitals and admissions at other facilities which included psychiatric care days
• childbirth admissions are defined as admissions with an Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Group (AR-DRG) of caesarean delivery, vaginal delivery with operating room procedure or vaginal delivery
• surgical admissions—admissions with a surgical AR-DRG
• medical admissions—those with a non-surgical AR-DRG (includes AR-DRGs classified as either 'medical' or 'other' in Australian hospital statistics).

Surgical and medical admissions are further divided into 'emergency' and 'other', based on the recorded urgency of admission – that is, whether admission was considered to be necessary within 24 hours (emergency) or not (other).

Percentage of same day admissions

This is the number of hospital admissions in which the date of admission and date of separation were the same, as a percentage of the total number of admissions. It is presented overall and for two groupings: acute care admissions (care type of 'acute') and sub-acute/non-acute admissions (care type not 'acute'—predominantly rehabilitation care).

Average length of stay for overnight admissions

The average length of stay is calculated as the number of patient days for a hospital divided by the number of admissions, excluding same-day admissions. The number of patient days associated with an admission is calculated by subtracting the date the patient was admitted from the date of separation and deducting days the patient was on leave. Average length of stay was calculated for the following care types: acute care, rehabilitation, palliative care and other non-acute/sub-acute care (maintenance care, psychogeriatric care, geriatric evaluation and management and other).

Counts of patient days are used to calculate average length of stay statistics. As the NHMD contains records for patients separating from hospital during the reporting period (1 July to 30 June for a financial year), this means that not all patient days reported will have occurred in that year. It is expected, however, that patient days for patients who separated in the reporting period, but who were admitted before the first day of the period, will be counterbalanced overall by the patient days for patients in hospital on the last day of the period who will separate in future reporting periods. The numbers of separations and patient days can result in less accurate average length of stay statistics for the reporting period for hospitals such as public psychiatric hospitals, and for patients receiving care other than acute care, for which more variable lengths of stay are reported.

There is some variation among jurisdictions in the use of statistical separations with change in care type, and this may affect the comparability of the length of stay data.