The Mid North Coast Local Health District (MNCLHD) has again performed well in the latest Bureau of Health Information (BHI) Healthcare Quarterly report, recording improvement across several key areas of emergency department and elective surgery performance.
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MNCLHD chief executive Stewart Dowrick said from January to March 2018, 31,891 people attended emergency departments at public hospitals across the district (Port Macquarie, Kempsey, Macksville and Coffs Harbour).
“An important priority for our local health district is to reduce the time people spend in the emergency department and the latest hospital quarterly report shows that 76.6 per cent of patients left EDs across the district within four hours of arriving,” Mr Dowrick said.
“This quarter, the average transfer of care time was 12 minutes while 90 per cent of patients arriving at Mid North Coast public hospitals by ambulance were transferred to the emergency department within the 30-minute benchmark.
“We will continue to work closely with clinicians to improve waiting times for patients visiting our emergency departments,” Mr Dowrick said.
Mr Dowrick said while less urgent presentations to emergency departments have declined compared to last year, there are still patients coming to hospital emergency departments for non-emergency reasons who could receive treatment more appropriately by accessing services such as their general practitioner or local pharmacy.
Port Macquarie Base Hospital saw a slight decrease of 115 or -1.3 per cent in emergency department presentations, and has focused on improving patient flow and patient safety using the NSW Health resources.
There has also been an increased focus on proactive management of systems and processes to facilitate patient flow including; admission policies and procedures including fast-track and direct admissions, network flows with patient returns to referring facilities post specialist care. A Mental Health Services Short Term Escalation Plan has also been developed.
Mr Dowrick said the BHI Healthcare Quarterly also reports on elective surgery performance across the district. The MNCLHD continues to make very effective use of its network operations between its larger base hospitals and smaller district facilities.
“The local health district provided elective surgical services to 2,543 patients in the January to March 2018 quarter, with a consistent 98.8 per cent of procedures performed within the clinically recommended time frames.”
