Overview
The Institute compiles and reports on a range of data on hospitals, detailing the characteristics of public hospitals, non-admitted patient care, admitted patients and the care they receive in hospital, and elective surgery and emergency department waiting times.
The Institute takes active steps to improve the national consistency of these data over time.
Data quality
States and territories are primarily responsible for the quality of the data they provide. However, the AIHW undertakes extensive validations on receipt of data, and potential errors are queried with jurisdictions. Corrections and resubmissions may be made in response to these queries. Except as noted, the AIHW does not adjust data to account for possible data errors or missing or incorrect values.
It should be noted that the statistics presented in the AIHW reports based on these data may be updated online due to revisions to the underlying data provided by the states and territories.
Australian hospital statistics
Australian hospital statistics 2011–12 summarises the latest data on public hospitals, non-admitted patient care and admitted patients in public and private hospitals. It illustrates changes in hospital activity over time, including time series for individual states and territories, and some differences between hospitals in the public and private sectors. It also includes summary information on cases of Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) in public hospitals, an important indicator of the safety of hospital care.
Australian hospital statistics 2011-12: emergency department care summarises the latest data relating to emergency department care in major public hospitals for the period 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012. This report includes corrected waiting times and length of stay information for about 12,000 records for the Australian Capital Territory that were submitted for the reporting periods 2008-09 to 2011-12.
Australian hospital statistics 2011-12: elective surgery waiting times summarises the latest date relating to elective surgery waiting times in public hospitals for the period 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012.
Australian hospital statistics 2011-12: Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia in Australian public hospitals presents information on hospital-associated Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia infections in public hospitals for the period 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012.
Australian hospital statistics: national emergency access and elective surgery targets 2012 presents data for performance indicators related to emergency department lengths of stay of 4 hours or less and lengths of time spent waiting for elective surgery. These data are provided to the COAG Reform Council for them to determine state and territory performance against the agreed targets.
Australia's hospitals at a glance
Australian hospital statistics 2011–12 is accompanied by a shorter companion report—Australia's hospitals 2011–12 at a glance. The companion report provides a summary of the detailed information presented in Australian hospital statistics 2011–12, in a form accessible to a general readership.
