ABOUT one in every 500 hospital admissions in Australia in 2016-17 related to hospital-acquired medication complications, according to a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The study included data from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, which found about 2.2% of admissions in total related to hospital-acquired complications - or 186,000.
Of those, the majority (1.2% of the total) related to infections acquired in hospital, while medication complications accounted for 0.2% or about 18,000.
It's the first time medication-related complications have been separately identified in the report.
The 2016-17 figures also indicated admissions to public hospitals were also rising faster than those for private hospitals.
See the full report at aihw.gov.au.
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