3.9 Average length of stay for hip fracture patients aged 65 years and over, major and large public hospitals, 2012–13

Collection and usage attributes

65 years and over

Presented as the average number of days, by hospital

Only hospitals in the major and large peer groups and which had at least 10 separations were included in the analysis. For more information about these peer groups see /content/index.phtml/itemId/584666

To calculate the average length of stay the key unit that records information about a patient's stay in hospital is called an 'episode of admitted patient care'. This records information about the patient and the care they received in hospital, including:

• Sex
• Diagnosis
• Procedure type
• Date of admission and
• Date of separation/discharge.

Exclusions:

The average length of stay indicator relates only to acute patients with a multi-day, or overnight, stay. The following episodes of care are excluded from all reported measures:

• Same day episodes, i.e. patients admitted and discharged on the same day
• Episodes for non-acute care
• Episodes where the patient died
• Episodes where the patient transferred to another facility within 2 days.

Outlier removal: 

Episodes determined to be extreme long stay outliers were removed. Outlier bounds are derived for each AR-DRG. The method selected for deriving national level outlier bounds uses the inter-quartile ranges as the guide for outlier exclusion. The method of detecting extreme outliers (mEO) is as follows:

mEO = Q₃ + k*(Q₃-Q₁)

Where

Q₁ equals the 25^th percentile value

Q₃ equals the 75^th percentile value

k equals non-negative values of a constant.

Sensitivity analysis was conducted to identify k and resulted in k=10 being selected.

Numerator ÷ denominator

Number of overnight bed days at major and large public hospitals attributable to hip fracture in patients aged 65 years and over.

Number of multi-day stays in hospital for people aged 65 years and over attributable to a fractured hip for a major or large public hospital.

Disaggregation is by:

• Australian public hospital
• Hospital peer group (major and large only). For more information about the hospital peer groups used see /content/index.phtml/itemId/584666

Representational attributes

Days, rounded to 1dp

Data source attributes

Accountability attributes

Australian Commission of Safety and Quality in Health Care's Atlas of Healthcare Variation, released November 2015 

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Australian Commission of Safety and Quality in Health Care

Source and reference attributes

National Health Performance Authority