Quarterly snapshot of NSW hospital performance shows improvement
The latest report by the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) shows patients attending NSW emergency departments during the July to September 2016 quarter generally waited less time for their treatment to begin and spent less time in the emergency department.
The Hospital Quarterly report provides the most up-to-date snapshot of activity and performance in NSW public hospitals.
BHI Chief Executive Jean-Frederic Levesque said more than 650,000 patients visited a NSW emergency department in the July to September quarter, an increase of 3,900 compared to one year ago, and performance had improved.
“The report shows, compared to the same quarter last year, the time that patients waited for treatment in NSW emergency departments decreased in all triage categories,” Dr Levesque said.
“There has been a decrease in the time patients waited for their treatment to start, and in the total time they spent in the emergency department.
“The report shows that some hospitals’ performance remain considerably lower than the NSW result on a number of measures despite the fact that they have significantly improved.”
More than 148,000 patients travelled to the emergency department by ambulance in the July to September quarter. The report shows these patients generally waited less time for their care to be transferred to emergency department staff.
“This quarter, nine in ten patients arriving by ambulance had their care transferred to hospital staff within 30 minutes, which is an increase of 7.0 percentage points compared to a year ago, and is the highest result reported by BHI in a July to September quarter,” Dr Levesque said.
There were more than 490,000 hospital admissions this quarter and this is the highest volume reported by BHI in the past five years.
More than 58,000 elective surgical procedures were performed this quarter, which is 3.0% more than the same quarter one year ago.
“Across NSW, more patients received elective surgery compared to the same time last year, while the time patients waited for surgery reduced in all urgency categories. This improvement was particularly strong for non-urgent surgery,” Dr Levesque said.
Across NSW, 97.9% of elective surgery was performed on time, an improvement of one percentage point. This includes:
- 99.8% of urgent surgery was performed within the recommended 30 days
- 98.0% of semi-urgent surgery was performed within the recommended 90 days
- 96.9% of non-urgent surgery was performed within the recommended 365 days.