National Healthcare Agreement: PI 21a-Waiting times for emergency hospital care: Proportion seen on time, 2014

Collection and usage attributes

See Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode - triage category, code N for description of each triage category.

The numerator and denominator include records with a Type of visit of Emergency presentation. 

Records are excluded from both the numerator and denominator if the episode end status is either Did not wait to be attended by a health professional, or Dead on arrival, not treated in emergency department, or if the waiting time to service is invalid.

Limited to public hospitals in Peer Group A and B.

To ensure comparability over time, emergency department activity at the Mersey Community Hospital is reported with Peer Group B hospitals for National Healthcare Agreement purposes. Whilst it is currently not a Peer Group A or B hospital, in the baseline year (2007-08) Mersey was a campus of the Peer Group B North West Regional Hospital and its emergency department activity was included in the baseline.

Analysis by state and territory is based on location of service.

Analysis by remoteness and Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socioeconomic Disadvantage (IRSD) is based on usual residence of person.

Presented as a percentage.

100 x (Numerator ÷ Denominator)

Calculated overall and separately for each triage category.

Number of presentations to public hospital emergency departments that were treated within benchmarks for each triage category:

• Triage category 1: seen within seconds, calculated as less than or equal to 2 minutes
• Triage category 2: seen within 10 minutes
• Triage category 3: seen within 30 minutes
• Triage category 4: seen within 60 minutes
• Triage category 5: seen within 120 minutes

2011–12 (revised for peer group) and 2012–13—Nationally, by Triage category, by 2011 Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socioeconomic Disadvantage (IRSD) deciles.

2011–12 (revised for peer group) and 2012–13—State and territory, by Triage category by:

• peer group
• Indigenous status
• remoteness (Australian Standard Geographical Classification Remoteness Structure for 2011-12 data, Australian Statistical Geography Standard Remoteness Structure for 2012-13 data) 
• 2011 SEIFA IRSD quintiles

Disaggregation by peer group is limited to Peer Groups A and B, as this is the scope of the collection, and coverage varies for other hospitals by state and territory.

Some disaggregation may result in numbers too small for publication.  

Most recent data available for 2014 Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Reform Council (CRC) report: 2012–13.

For 2011-12 data, the 2011 SEIFA IRSD quintile and decile data will be produced using the Australian Standard Geography Classification geographical unit of Statistical Local Area.  In future years, these data will be produced using the Australian Statistical Geography Standard geographical unit of Statistical Area 2.

Representational attributes

Indicator conceptual framework

Data source attributes

Accountability attributes

Source and reference attributes

Relational attributes