The figures,released by the Bureau of Health Information on Wednesday,also show patients requiring specialised or longer-term care in hospital were hospitalised for almost two days longer than five years ago.
While acute patients spent an average of 4.7 days in hospital,non-acute patients admitted to public hospitals from October to December 2023 averaged 16.7 days,up from 14.8 days in the same three months of 2018.
Patients were spending longer in hospital beds on average during 2021 and 2022 due to more patients being treated in hospital for COVID-19,and patients being discharged to aged care.
Bureau of Health Information chief executive Dr Diane Watson,however,said analysis of four common conditions showed the length of stay was increasing for some,regardless of the impacts of the pandemic.
“At a time when hospitals are so busy,looking at how long patients spend in hospital is really important,” Watson said. “Our focus was on finding opportunities to reduce length of stay that were unrelated to COVID-19.”
The average length of stay for patients admitted because of heart failure,for example,increased from 3.8 days in 2018 to four days in 2023,despite a decline in the number of cases.