During the COVID-19 pandemic many planned surgeries in Victoria were deferred. The COVID Catch-up Plan aimed to improve the health system’s capacity to deliver planned surgeries and address the backlog from the pandemic. This audit was conducted to see if the plan delivered its intended outcomes. It made two recommendations to address its findings.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming healthcare with a promise to improve clinical decision-making, patient outcomes and hospital systems’ efficiency. Yet, challenges related to patient safety and model bias, validation and integration into existing systems remain. This brief offers specific actions that will contribute to a national strategy to develop an AI ecosystem suited to Australia’s...

This paper draws on the experience of Metro North Hospital and Health Service (MNHHS) in Queensland and the processes it undertook to purchase the Mako robotic system for hip and knee replacements and how it was implemented into a major public hospital. The case study provides some insights that can potentially be adapted to a...

Elective surgery waiting times 2017–18: Australian hospital statistics focuses on information about public hospital elective surgery waiting lists between. It presents information on overall activity, what elective surgery was provided and how long people waited for elective surgery.

In 2015–16, there were an estimated 18,746 new hip fractures in Australia, a crude rate of 199 hip fractures per 100,000 population aged 45 and over. This represents a decline in the rate of hip fractures over time, suggesting that measures to reduce risk factors and prevent falls are having an effect.