Need assistance?
There has been an increase in emergency department presentations or hospital presentations in Quarter 4 2025–26, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest quality indicator report.
In Q3 2025–26, the percentage of aged care residents presenting to the emergency department or being admitted to hospital was 15.9 per cent, and in Q4 2025–26 it increased to 16.3 per cent.
Emergency department presentations alone also increased from 13.1 per cent in Q3 2025–26 to 13.7 per cent in Q4 2025–26.
There was also an increase in falls between Q3 2025–26 and Q4 2025–26 – going from 31.1 per cent to 31.8 per cent. Similarly falls resulting in major injury also increased – 0.1 percentage points to 1.7 per cent – in the same period. Polypharmacy increased slightly too – from 35.3 per cent to 35.4 per cent.
Increases were also seen in both restrictive practices and restrictive practices exclusively through the use of a secure area – going from 20.7 per cent to 21.1 per cent and 15.03 per cent to 16 per cent, respectively.
However, the AIHW noted a decrease in the proportion of residents experiencing other adverse events in residential aged care between Q3 2025–26 and Q4 2025–26, including:
- one or more pressure injuries (by 0.2 per cent)
- significant unplanned weight loss (by 0.8 per cent)
- consecutive unplanned weight loss (by 1.4 per cent)
- antipsychotic medication use (by 0.3 per cent).
But the AIHW highlighted that there was an overall statistically significant decrease among these adverse events between Q1 2021–22 and Q4 2025–26, aside from the proportion of residents experiencing restrictive practices, restrictive practice exclusively through the use of a secure area and falls.
Meanwhile, the percentage of residents reporting good or excellent experience of a home and good or excellent quality of life have both increased between Q3 2025–26 and Q4 2025–26. The improvements since Q4 2022–23 are considered statistically significant.
The full data update is available here.
Subscribe to The Ageing Agenda newsletters here and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook
Advertisement
Comments are closed.