Assessing the relationship between inpatient and outpatient activity:a clinical specialty analysis

Abstract

General and specialist services in public acute hospital outpatient departments play a key role in the health care systemand represent a vital interface between inpatient and community care. Typically outpatient services involve millionsof patient visits within a very short time frame and in Victoria alone between 8-10 million outpatient occasions ofservice are provided each year. Drawing on the first full year of data from the Victorian Ambulatory ClassificationSystem (VACS) this paper examines the patterns underlying the distribution of inpatient separations and outpatientencounters at 16 major Victorian public hospitals and assesses the relationship between inpatient and outpatientactivity at the clinical specialty level.