{"id":576,"date":"2018-11-16T05:01:23","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T05:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=576"},"modified":"2018-11-16T05:01:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T05:01:23","slug":"similar-treatment-but-costs-vary-greatly-across-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2018\/11\/16\/similar-treatment-but-costs-vary-greatly-across-hospitals\/","title":{"rendered":"Similar treatment \u2013 but costs vary greatly across hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cost of treating patients can be almost twice as high depending on the hospital, according to a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW).
\nThe report,\u00a0Costs of acute admitted patients in\u00a0<\/em>public hospitals from 2012\u2013<\/em>1<\/em>3 to 2014\u2013<\/em>1<\/em>5<\/em>, examines the costs associated with providing similar treatment to patients, across comparable public hospitals. These data are available for benchmarking the average costs of care across hospitals and over time.
\nThe report shows that some hospitals spent up to $6,400 to deliver a notional \u2018average\u2019 service for acute admitted patients, which cost as little as $3,300 in other hospitals.
\n\u2018Across major public hospitals, the average cost to treat acute admitted patients was $4,680,\u2019 said AIHW spokesperson Dr Adrian Webster.
\nOverall, the average cost of delivering care in major public hospitals decreased by 1% over the period 2012\u201313 to 2014\u201315.
\n‘Acute admitted patients include those who are admitted for the management of childbirth, surgery, or other diagnostic and therapeutic procedures,\u2019 Dr Webster said
\nFour of the 5 major public hospitals with the lowest costs were located in Victoria: the Alfred, Monash Medical Centre, University Hospital Geelong, and St Vincent\u2019s Hospital, with the remaining hospital\u2014Nepean Hospital\u2014located in New South Wales.
\nThe 5 hospitals with the highest costs were located across Australia: Canberra (ACT), Royal Perth Wellington St Campus (WA), Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (WA), Princess Alexandra Hospital (Qld), and Royal Adelaide Hospital (SA).
\nFrom 2012\u201313 to 2014\u201315, 7 major metropolitan public hospitals reduced their average cost of delivering care by at least 5%. Westmead Hospital saw the greatest decrease in costs, falling by 9%. This was followed by Prince Charles Hospital (Qld) and Flinders Hospital (SA) at 8% each.
\n\u2018On the other hand, 4 major metropolitan public hospitals increased their average cost of delivering care to acute admitted patients by at least 5%,\u2019 Dr Webster said.
\nThe average cost of care at Royal Perth Hospital (WA) grew the most, rising by 10%, followed by Royal Melbourne Hospital (Vic) (8%), and Royal Hobart Hospital (Tas) and Princess Alexandra Hospital (Qld) at 7% each.
\n\u2018To support fair comparisons of hospitals, the report does not include costs that are not comparable across hospitals nationally, such as property expenses,\u2019 Dr Webster said.
\nThe methods used in this report also account for key differences in the type of services provided to patients and the complexity of a patient\u2019s condition. These data do not, however, include information about the quality of care or patient outcomes so are only an indirect measure of hospital efficiency.
\n\u2018By looking at average costs per patient, this report provides us with another way of understanding our hospital system and variability in health care expenditure,\u2019 Dr Webster said.
\n\u2018The report also helps build a picture of costs over time, so we can develop a long term evidence base to inform policies aimed at improving the efficiency and sustainability of our health system.\u2019
\nToday\u2019s report is available on the AIHW\u2019s\u00a0MyHospitals<\/a>\u00a0website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cost of treating patients can be almost twice as high depending on the hospital, according to a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). The report,\u00a0Costs of acute admitted patients in\u00a0public hospitals from 2012\u201313 to 2014\u201315, examines the costs associated with providing similar treatment to patients, across comparable public hospitals. … Continue reading “Similar treatment \u2013 but costs vary greatly across hospitals”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}