Healthcare Utilisation

Frailty was associated with higher odds of unplanned hospital use overall and higher odds of GP use. The only robust association between self-management and care use was that higher Health Services Navigation was linked with greater nursing care use. Female patients incurred lower hospitalisation costs, underwent fewer diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and had fewer blood tests ordered per stay, all reaching statistical significance after Bonferroni correction. Frail participants had significantly higher adjusted odds of hospital visits for any diagnosis. Before the pandemic, First Nations people with diabetes had significantly higher rates of all measured healthcare interactions than matched controls. Patients consistently not at target had the highest surgery and durable medical equipment use at one and two years. The study concludes that healthcare utilisation differs strongly by settlement and by whether care is sought inside or outside settlement boundaries. The analysis distinguished care sought inside informal settlements from care sought outside them. By 2021/2022, long-stay admissions cost four times as much as short-stay admissions despite being fewer in number. Pan…