Fact Sheets

Fact Sheet - The state of our public hospitals, June 2007 - Tasmania

Snapshot of our public hospitals in Tasmania during 2005-06.

PDF printable version of Fact Sheet - The state of our public hospitals, June 2007 - Tasmania (PDF 102 KB)

Overview

• In 2005–06, Tasmania had 27 public hospitals.
• The number of public hospital beds, per 1,000 weighted population, rose to 2.5 in 2005–06 from 2.4 in 1998–99. Tasmania was below the national figure in 2005–06.
• In 2005–06 Tasmania ranked fourth for the amount of public hospital recurrent expenditure per person in the country ($806, an increase of 16 per cent in real terms from 1998–99).

The following table shows how Tasmania compared to other states and territories across key performance measures:

Performance measure	Ranked
Public hospital beds – number per 1,000 weighted population	4th
Public hospitals – proportion accredited	8th
Public hospital recurrent expenditure per person, weighted population	4th
Public patient admissions in all hospitals – number per 1,000 weighted population	8th
Elective surgery – percentage of people seen within the recommended time	8rd
Elective surgery – percentage of admissions that waited longer than one year	7th
Elective surgery – median waiting time	5th
Emergency department – percentage seen within the recommended time	4th
Emergency department – median waiting time	5th

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Admissions

The number of public hospital admissions, per 1,000 weighted population, in Tasmania increased from 168 in 1998–99 to 179 in 2005–06.

Public hospitals	2005-06		1998-99
	Tasmania	Australian Total	Tasmania	Australian Total
Admissions per 1,000 weighted population	179	210	168	207

• Tasmania’s public hospitals admitted 94,304 patients. Of these, 82 per cent were public patients.
• The proportion of public patient admissions in all Tasmania’s hospitals (including private hospitals) was 52 per cent.
• The average length of stay for overnight patients in Tasmania’s public hospitals in 2005–06 was 7.3 days, down from 8.2 days in 1998–99. The length of stay is above the national figure.

Elective Surgery

• In 2005–06, more than 15,000 patients underwent some form of elective surgery procedure as public patients in Tasmania.
• Overall, 68 per cent of public elective surgery patients in 2005–06 were seen within the recommended time.
• The median waiting time for elective surgery in the state was 34 days, two days longer than the national median waiting time.

Elective surgery	2005-06		1998-99
	Tasmania (%)	Australian Total (%)	Tasmania (%)	Australian Total (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	68	81	75	90
Category 1: within 30 days	72	83	78	91
Category 2: within 90 days	57	74	64	86
Category 3: within 12 months	77	88	84	93

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Emergency Departments

• In 2005–06, there were more than 110,000 emergency presentations to larger public hospital emergency departments in Tasmania.
• Of those, around 62 per cent were treated within the clinically appropriate period, which is below the national average of 69 per cent.
• The median waiting time to be seen was 28 minutes, four minutes longer than the national median.

The following table shows how Tasmania performed in 2005–06 across the five emergency department triage categories:

Emergency departments	2005-06	1998-99
	Tasmania (%)	National (%)
Overall percentage seen in recommended time	62	69
Triage Category 1: Need for resuscitation	95	99
Triage Category 2: Emergency	68	77
Triage Category 3: Urgent	57	64
Triage Category 4: Semi–urgent	59	65
Triage Category 5: Non–urgent	89	87