Potentially avoidable general practitioner (GP)-type presentations are defined as presentations to public hospital emergency departments with a Type of visit of Emergency presentation where the patient:

• was allocated a Triage category of 4 (Semi-urgent: within 60 minutes) or 5 (Non-urgent: within 120 minutes) and
• did not arrive by ambulance, or police or correctional vehicle and
• was not admitted to the hospital, not referred to another hospital, or did not die.

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) 2018–19 and the NAPEDC National Best Endeavours Data Set (NBEDS) 2018–19.

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

Presented as a number.

Numerator only.

Number of potentially avoidable GP-type presentations to emergency departments.

2018–19—State and territory.

Nationally by 2016 SEIFA IRSD deciles (not reported this cycle).

State and territory, by (all not reported this cycle):

• Indigenous status
• remoteness (Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) 2016)
• 2016 SEIFA IRSD quintiles
• peer group and triage category.

Some disaggregations may result in numbers too small for publication.

Most recent data available for 2020 National Healthcare Agreement performance reporting: 2018–19.

This definition of ‘potentially avoidable GP-type presentation’ was used in the Booz Allen Hamilton study of emergency department care in NSW, and is considered to be a reasonable starting approximation of the population that should be receiving service in the primary care sector.

Note that for the 2016 and previous reports 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.

NN[NNNNN]

National Healthcare Agreement

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Specification: Substantial work required, the measure requires significant work to be undertaken.

Booz Allen Hamilton 2007. Key Drivers of Demand in the Emergency Department. Sydney: New South Wales Department of Health. Viewed 21 November 2019.