National Healthcare Agreement: PI 21a–Waiting times for emergency hospital care: Proportion seen on time, 2016

Collection and usage attributes

See Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—episode end status, 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, emergency department clinician certified the death of the patient, or if the waiting time to service is invalid.

The scope for calculation of this indicator is all hospitals reporting to the Non-admitted patient emergency department care (NAPEDC) National Minimum Data Set (NMDS) 2014–15.

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

Analysis by remoteness and Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) Index of Relative Socio-economic 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

Total presentations to public hospital emergency departments

2013–14 (revised for new scope) and 2014–15—Nationally, by Triage category, by 2011 SEIFA IRSD deciles (not reported).

2013–14 (revised for new scope) and 2014–15—State and territory, by Triage category by:

• peer group
• Indigenous status
• remoteness (Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Remoteness Structure)
• 2011 SEIFA IRSD quintiles

Disaggregation by peer group uses the peer group classification as described in Admitted patient care 2013–14: Australian hospital statistics.

Some disaggregation may result in numbers too small for publication.

Most recent data available for 2016 National Healthcare Agreement performance reporting: 2014–15.

For 2013–14 and 2014–15 data, the 2011 SEIFA IRSD quintile and decile data will be produced using the Australian Statistical unit of Statistical Area Level 2.

Note that previously the scope for the calculation of this indicator was limited to public hospitals in Peer Groups A and B, using the peer group classification method as reported in Australian hospital statistics 2010–11, with the addition of emergency department activity at the Mersey Community Hospital.

Representational attributes

NN[N]

Indicator conceptual framework

Data source attributes

Accountability attributes

National Healthcare Agreement

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Specification: Final, the measure meets the intention of the indicator.

Source and reference attributes

Relational attributes