Low-value care in Australian public hospitals: Prevalence and trends over time

Abstract

Objective To examine 27 low-value procedures, as defined by international recommendations, in New South Wales public hospitals. Design Analysis of admitted patient data for financial years 2010-2011 to 2016-2017. Main outcome measures Number and proportion of episodes identified as low value by two definitions (narrower and broader), associated costs and bed-days, and variation between hospitals in financial year 2016-2017; trends in numbers of low-value episodes from 2010-2011 to 2016-2017. Results For 27 procedures in 2016-2017, we identified 5079 (narrower definition) to 8855 (broader definition) episodes involving low-value care (11.00%-19.18% of all 46 169 episodes involving these servi..