New initiatives planned to meet ED waiting times target

04/10/2011 | ED waiting times

MidCentral Health is working hard to ensure the whole organisation is involved in and supporting its bid to meet the national health target around shorter stays in its emergency department.

MDHB’s hospital advisory committee heard today that MCH is taking the target very seriously, and has a number of initiatives which it hopes will be successful in reaching and maintaining the target into the future.

The target is 95 percent of patients will be admitted, discharged or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.

In a progress report toward achieving the target, MCH says that while recently there has been a slight decline in the percentage of patients admitted, discharged, or transferred from ED within six hours, overall there has been a steady upward trend over the past 18 months.

A new steering group has identified a number of improvements to meet the health target and will combine this with an awareness campaign branded ‘Make KT Smile’.  The group anticipates these will significantly raise the profile of the target in the hospital and across the community, ensuring that the target is owned by the entire organisation.

KT is a hypothetical person used to portray real MidCentral patients, visitors, or staff and their experiences. The brand will be used as the umbrella for a wider range of projects all aimed at improving the patient experience and the working environment which will “make KT smile”. Other ‘make KT smile’ projects include: care capacity demand management; transforming primary health care through the Better, Sooner, More Convenient business case; and releasing time to care.

A senior clinician from within existing staff will be appointed to work with the specialty teams and wards to support and ensure initiatives are implemented. Key initiatives of that position will be: improving the response time for patients transferred to wards; implementing rapid rounds on top of daily ward rounds, meeting to discuss patients progress toward a co-ordinated, more efficient patient discharge; and a ‘never say no’ campaign, focusing on positive attitudes of staff and actions to minimise a patient’s ED stay.

The steering group is also looking to extend a successful trial of an electronic tool called ‘hospital at a glance’ to help clinical and operational staff better manage hospital capacity and improve patient flow, daily, hourly, and by the minute, including tracing patients’ progress through ED.
The group is confident of reaching the target after implementing these initiatives.

Contact: Communications Unit (06) 350-8945