The Bureau of Health Information (BHI) has reported the findings of special analyses which show patients diagnosed with COVID-19 during their hospital stay and those discharged to residential aged care have been the principal drivers of increased average length of stay for patients admitted to NSW public hospitals since mid-2021.

A key priority in BHI’s Strategic Plan 2023–2026 is to deliver high-value insights. The Special Reporting section of our Healthcare Quarterly report offers additional analysis of the context and drivers for key activity and performance measures.

The latest issue of the report, released today, shows overnight patients admitted to NSW public hospitals spent 6.3 days in hospital on average in April to June 2023 – 12.5% longer than the 5.6 days these patients spent in hospital before the pandemic, following a notable increase in mid-2021.

To provide further insights, BHI analysts examined average length of stay over five years from two perspectives:

• 'Admission-based analyses' focused on understanding variation in average length of stay throughout the entire patient journey within and across hospitals.
• ‘Episode-based analyses’ focused on understanding differences in average length of stay by type of hospital care (acute or non-acute).

The analyses show that patients diagnosed with COVID-19 during their admission stayed twice as long in hospital on average as other patients, and those discharged to residential aged care stayed even longer.

For the small cohort of patients who received a COVID-19 diagnosis and were discharged to residential aged care, the average length of stay increased further.

The Special Reporting section in Healthcare Quarterly, April to June 2023 presents the detailed results of this analyses, including graphs illustrating five-year trends in overnight admission numbers and average lengths of stay for COVID-19 patients and those discharged to residential aged care.

The report is now available here.