One in nine suffer a complication in hospital: now patients can be better informed

According to the Grattan Institute one in nine patients in an Australian hospital suffer a complication – about 900,000 each year – and for overnight stays, that increases to one in four – about 725,000 each year. The risk of complication varies significantly depending on the hospital. In some cases the additional risk can be four times higher than the worst perfomers compared with the best-performing 10% of hospitals.

Now Australians who are having elective surgery can arm themselves with the information to make better choices for their health and pre-empt potential complications.

The Grattan Institute has developed an online Hospital Complications Calculator to allow people to intentify their chances of suffering an adverse event in hospital as a result of elective surgery. The information is based on data collected from Australian hospitals between 2012 and 2015.

Users input their details by making a selection from simple drop down menus for specialty, age, sex and likely length of stay. They are then presented with a list of potential complications and the likelihood of those complications occurring.

For example, for pain management procedures with a multi-day stay, for females aged between 20 and 49, 13% had a complication, the most likely complication being nausea and vomiting. For men aged between 50 and 64 who had neurosurgery, 19% had a complication, with hypotension (low blood pressure) and accidental puncture the most likely complications.

The calculator does not expose which hospitals perform better than others. A move towards further transparency would give patients and GPs the opportunity to make better-informed decisions and help all hospitals learn from best-performing sites and clinicians.

To find out more, download the Grattan Institute report All complications should count.