Hospital Quarterly, April to June 2011 released
The Bureau of Health Information has today released the latest Hospital Quarterly with information profiling demand in NSW public hospitals in the April to June, 2011 quarter.
The report finds there were 52,000 elective surgery procedures performed in NSW public hospitals – about 1,000 less than the same period last year but 3,000 more compared with two years ago.
“What we see is more elective surgery procedures being completed than two years ago but also more patients being seen on time,” Bureau Chief Executive Dr Diane Watson said.
“Overall, 92%, of patients were seen on time for their elective surgery this quarter. That’s up from 87% one year ago and 89% two years ago. The highest rise was for non-urgent elective surgery with 92% of patients seen within the recommended 365 days. That compares to 85% one year ago and 90% two years ago.
In NSW public hospitals, there were over 412,000 admitted patient episodes, 12,000 or 3% more than a year ago and 28,000 or 7% more than two years ago.
At the same time, emergency department attendances from April to June exceeded 512,000, up by more than 16,000 or 3% from one year ago but down 23,000 from the two-year peak that occurred during the Christmas quarter last year.
“This represents a decline in the number of people going to emergency departments since the 2010 Christmas peak but more patients are being admitted from emergency departments to hospital,” Dr Watson said.
“Emergency admissions of 120,000 represent an increase of more than 1,000 since the 2010 Christmas peak, almost 8,000 or 7% since one year ago and 10,000 or 9% since two years ago.”
In this latest Hospital Quarterly, the Bureau reports on emergency department attendances while it considers new ways to report wait time performance.
“We’ve seen some differences in how hospitals record emergency department information and from what the Bureau has seen so far, the varied recording methods can be clinically reasonable but make it difficult to fairly compare hospitals” Dr Watson said.
“The Bureau expects to change the way it reports on emergency departments. Emergency department performance information for the April to June 2011 and July to September 2011 quarters will be published in the next Hospital Quarterly, due in December.”