Patients treated by urgency category

Hospital emergency departments provide urgent care for seriously ill and injured Victorians. When a patient arrives at an emergency department, they are 'triaged' (assessed) for urgency and categorised on a scale from Triage Category 1 (requires resuscitation – immediate treatment) to Triage Category 5 (non-urgent – treatment within 2 hours).

Tap the buttons below for specific data about emergency department patients. You can filter by urgency category and hospital.

Scroll further down for more information about the data (measures).

About the data

The above measures look at:

  • emergency department presentations
  • emergency department patients treated
  • patients treated within recommended time
  • percentage of patients treated within recommended time.

About emergency department presentations

The number of patients who arrived at an emergency department for care. Excludes those who were deceased upon arrival.

About emergency department patients treated

The number of patients who were treated in emergency departments according to triage category.

  • Triage category 1 (need for resuscitation): requires treatment immediately
  • Triage category 2 (emergency): requires treatment within 10 minutes
  • Triage category 3 (urgent): requires treatment within 30 minutes
  • Triage category 4 (semi-urgent): requires treatment within 1 hour
  • Triage category 5 (non-urgent): requires treatment within 2 hours.

Data is also shown for patients who were treated within the recommended times. The 2023-24 and 2024-25 statewide targets for the percentage of patients treated within time have not been finalised.

Excludes those who left at their own risk without treatment, those who left after clinical advice, or those who were deceased on arrival.

Notes

  • Data source: Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset (VEMD). Data extracted on 16 October 2024
  • Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) presentations have been excluded from the calculation of all emergency indicators
  • Results for the current financial year are preliminary and may change from quarter to quarter, final results will be available in November. Results from the previous financial year have been finalised
  • Care needs to be taken when assessing results and comparing them to prior periods
  • * No results are available.