WA Health is dedicated to providing high-quality healthcare to Western Australians.
We collect and publish a range of data to inform the community how we are doing against standards set for clinical care, so that we can continuously improve our treatment and services.
We recognise the importance of addressing the health needs of Aboriginal people. The data presented here represents all Western Australians who have been inpatients in our public hospitals, irrespective of indigenous, ethnic, cultural background. You can find comprehensive data focusing exclusively on Aboriginal health here.
About our data
Our data includes information on public inpatients from all cultures, backgrounds, ages and genders, who use Western Australia’s public hospitals.
We only include inpatient data from public hospitals, although we recognise that there are many occasions where care is provided by private hospitals, in the community, and at home.
To ensure the information is meaningful, you can view the data as numbers or as a rate. Where a rate has been used, we have used standardised tools called ‘patient days’ or ‘bed days’.
Some of our rates are presented as ‘patient days’ and others as ‘bed days’.
Patient days are calculated as the total number of days that a patient was in the hospital until they were discharged. In contrast, bed days are counted as the number of days that a bed has been occupied. Bed days are counted throughout the patient’s stay, and include the patients that have not yet been discharged.
Overall, the yearly difference between calculations of patient days and bed days is less than one per cent.
More information
If this data is of interest to you or questions arise, please contact us by emailing PSCQ.CED@health.wa.gov.au
Last reviewed: 04-11-2024