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01 December 2006
Hospital performance improves in the face of increasing emergency demand
Latest hospital performance figures reveal NSW hospitals are treating emergency patients faster and performing more elective surgery, despite increasing emergencydepartment activity, NSW Health Minister John Hatzistergos said today.
“In just 15 months we have achieved a significant improvement in hospital performance.
There’s more to do, but we are headed in the right direction,” Mr Hatzistergos said.
“These encouraging figures were a result of the Predictable Surgery Program – designed by clinicians and backed by extra dollars, nurses and beds.
“Emergency department performance has improved across all triage categories – by significant margins in many cases.
“We have met the College of Emergency Medicine’s national benchmarks in four of five categories, and were just 2 percentage points below benchmark in the other category.
“The most seriously ill patients presenting to emergency departments – triage category 1 – were all seen within the benchmark time frame of two minutes.
| Triage category |
October 2006 |
October 2005 |
% Improvement |
National benchmark |
| 1 |
100 |
100 |
N/A |
100 |
| 2 |
89 |
78 |
10 |
80 |
| 3 |
73 |
61 |
12 |
75 |
| 4 |
75 |
65 |
9 |
70 |
| 5 |
90 |
86 |
4 |
70 |
“This has been achieved in the face of a big increase in the demand for emergency department services.
“In September/October 2006, 303,396 people sought treatment in a NSW emergency department – an increase of 7.2 per cent compared to the same period last year.
“Of those, 69,099 people with more serious illnesses and injuries required admission to a ward, surgery or intensive care – up 7.8 per cent from the same period last year.
“In spite of this significant increase in emergency cases, we are doing more surgery and cutting the waiting lists,” he said.
Mr Hatzistergos said 71,545 patients were admitted to hospital for elective surgery from July 2006 to October 2006 – that is 1,765 more operations than the same period in 2005.
“In October 2006, the total booked surgical waiting list stood at 52,763 – a 10.4% reduction from October last year.
“The September/ October figures show the number of patients waiting more than 12 months for elective surgery (“long waits”) has been slashed:
- August 2005: 4,947 → August 2006: 488
- September 2005: 4,895 → September 2006: 449
- October 2005: 4,597 → October 2006: 202.
“I also want to pay tribute to the hard work of our doctors and nurses – their efforts to improve the efficiency of our hospitals is evident in these results,” he said.
For a range of health information, go online to www.health.nsw.gov.au
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