Latest NSW Hospital Quarterly Report Released

New South Wales' Public Hospitals have had an increase in volume according to the latest Hospital Quarterly report released by the Bureau of Health Information (BHI) today.
The report profiles activity and performance in NSW public hospitals during October to December 2014 ahd shows more than 636,000 people  visited emergency departments during that time.
BHI Chief Executive, Dr Jean-Frederic Levesque, said: “Compared to the same time in 2013 hospitals reported two percent more hospital admissions and three percent more patients visiting the emergency department, although elective surgery numbers are stable,” Dr Levesque said.
Other results show that the total time patients spent in the emergency department was the shortest recorded for any October to December quarter over the past five years and the median waiting times to treatment for people presenting at NSW emergency departments were the same or shorter across all urgency categories compared to the same quarter the previous year. For patients who arrived by ambulance, 86 per cent had their care transferred from ambulance to emergency department staff within 30 minutes, one percentage point less than the same quarter the previous year.
“Despite more patients visiting emergency departments, the report shows patients are spending less time in the emergency department overall.
“Across NSW, 73% of patients left emergency departments within four hours, an improvement of two percentage points compared to the same quarter the previous year,” Dr Levesque said.
The Hospital Quarterly report also shows there were more than 54,000 elective surgeries performed, which is largely unchanged from the same quarter the previous year.
“The report shows that overall NSW continues to provide 97 per cent of elective surgery on time, which is a stable result for the past seven quarters,” Dr Levesque said.
Five years of detailed results for more than 80 hospitals in NSW are available on BHI’s online interactive portal Healthcare Observer