Patient unit to reduce hospital ED wait times
A six-bed patient assessment unit at Southland Hospital will reduce wait times at the hospital’s emergency department, a senior doctor says.
Dr Prosen Ghosh, clinical leader for internal medicine at Southland Hospital, outlined his team’s vision for a patient assessment unit to be built at the hospital during a Southern District Health Board commissioner committee meeting in Invercargill on Wednesday.
If the proposal is given the green light, patients would be referred to the unit by GPs and medics at the hospital. This would result in less people using the hospital’s emergency department so wait times for emergency department patients would be reduced, Ghosh said.
‘‘If a person is referred by their GP, they will arrive at ED and be checked by nursing staff and the medical registrar will let the medical assessment unit know and they will be expecting the patient.’’
The proposed unit, which would be operated 24/7 and be manned by doctors and nurses, would ‘‘improve the patient experience because they would arrive at the hospital and not wait and wait and wait’’.
‘‘Ideally we would look at a length of stay at less than 4 hours and then decide if they need to be moved to a medical ward [or] discharged.’’
It would reduce the time it took for acute patients at the hospital to get diagnosed and treated, he said.
The longer patients were in ED the longer they were waiting for treatment, meaning the next patient would also wait longer, he said. ’’ED has become overcrowded ... it’s a problem.’’
The proposed unit’s six beds would be for patients to be assessed; not to stay overnight. Ideally, the unit would be built near the emergency department at the hospital, he said.
When asked by SDHB commissioner Kathy Grant if the unit had to be all or nothing, Ghosh said he believed they had to strive for the best and go all the way.
Ghosh and his team at the hospital now wait on a response from Grant’s commissioner team.
A detailed business plan would be developed if the proposal was approved, he said.