The Queensland health minister, Steven Miles, says the state’s hospitals should stop performing “low-value” procedures where patients gain little benefit.

Speaking in Brisbane on Thursday, Miles said the state government could save 6,000 hospital admissions a year by discouraging procedures performed with little or no evidence that they improve patient health.

There are 27 procedures that are now being discouraged in certain people, including exploratory procedures such as endoscopies, colonoscopies and knee arthroscopies. Other operations include hyperbaric oxygen treatment and open bariatric surgery, a form of gastric bypass.

“If for any patient that intervention is of value, then it still will be done,” Miles told the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia.

“The point here is that for certain groups of patients the intervention itself is of low value to them. It involves, often time, going through an operation and rehabilitation.

“There are certain types of back operation, for example, where research suggests that exercise improving strength is actually of more benefit than the operation might be.”

Miles said the procedures already identified accounted for 6,000 hospital admissions and about $50m in funding. He said the money would be redirected to higher care, and doctors would be encouraged to redirect patients to more effective treatments or other interventions.

Miles told the CEDA event that healthcare had been the main issue of concern for voters at the recent Longman byelection. Miles said the same could be said for neighbouring seats, including Dickson, which is held by home affairs minister Peter Dutton.

He said the Queensland government had undertaken a data project that would underpin a new website – a TripAdvisor for hospitals – that would allow patients to compare public and private hospital outcomes in a range of specialty areas.