Public hospital performance improves
New data reveals widespread improvement in public hospital performance across Australia. The Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, claims the federal government’s record extra $19.8 billion investment in public hospitals is “paying off for patients”.
New data reveals widespread improvement in public hospital performance across Australia.
The Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, claims the federal government’s record extra $19.8 billion investment in public hospitals is “paying off for patients”.
“All public hospital peer groups saw an improvement in the percentage of patients who had urgent surgery on time.
“Nearly all public hospital peer groups saw an increase in the percentage of patients leaving emergency departments within the four hour target period,” Minister Plibersek says.
There was little change in the results across public hospital peer groups for non urgent surgery.
The new data comes from the National Health Performance Authority (NHPA), which was released last week.
The data was for the January – March 2013 quarter and was compared with the same quarter in 2012.
Victoria, Western Australia, and South Australia were the only states to have any of their larger public hospitals record statistically significant declines in emergency department performance.
“While this data shows generally improved performance, we need to continue the pressure for further improvement,” Minister Plibersek says.
“States and territories will have to lift their game if they are to meet both their surgery and their emergency department targets by 2015,” she adds.
In 2013-14, the federal government’s total investment in Australian public hospitals is a record $14.9 billion, and this will reportedly continue to rise year on year.
More detailed performance information, including at a hospital level, is publicly available on the MyHospitals website.
