Kingaroy Hospital Emergency Department kept busy

Hospital performance figures released today show Kingaroy Hospital is working harder than ever, with admissions and attendances far outstripping population growth.

Health Minister Stephen Robertson said the latest Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report showed a 25.9 per cent increase in the number of patients treated at the hospital’s emergency department in the last three months.

“Kingaroy Hospital is responding well to this increased demand for services, and I’d like to congratulate the dedicated hospital staff for keeping up with the extra workload,” Mr Robertson said.

“It’s great to see Kingaroy Hospital operating with a full contingent of medical staff.

“The hospital now has seven permanent senior medical officers working at the hospital, which brings great stability to the clinical service unit. I welcome them all and look forward to a great working relationship”.

The September Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report also highlights a slight increase in Category 2 patients waiting longer for elective surgeryas there is currently no surgeon at the hospital.

“Category 2 waits have increased slightly, partly because of the focus on Category 1 elective surgery in hospitals and Surgery Connect’s focus on mostly Category 3 ‘long waits’, and this is something we will be focusing on this coming quarter,” Mr Robertson said.

“Kingaroy had two ‘long wait’ patients in the last quarter, and following a surgical service review the patients have been referred under the care of the director of surgery at Ipswich Hospital.

“This system ensures the Kingaroy residents have access to appropriate surgical services, especially for urgent and semi urgent conditions.

Statewide, the September 2008 Quarterly Public Hospital Performance Report shows that compared to the same time last year there has been:

·a 5.8 per cent increase in emergency department attendances;

·a 5.9 per cent increase in hospital admissions;

·a 6.2 per cent increase in specialist outpatient appointments;

·an 8.9 per cent increase in elective surgery procedures;

·and a 17.6 per cent reduction in patients waiting longer than clinically desirable for their elective surgery.

“This report shows our hospitals are working harder than ever, but the strategies this Government has put in place are making strong improvements to ensuring more Queenslanders receive the timely health care they need and deserve,” Mr Robertson said.

“I have nothing but praise for our dedicated staff and I thank them all for their hard work.

The Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report (September 08 quarter) is available in the What's New section of the Queensland Health website at http://www.health.qld.gov.au/.

Ends.

MEDIA: Kate Van Poelgeest 3234 1185 or Martin Philip 3235 2680

DEFINITIONS

Outpatient services provided = the number of outpatient and other non-admitted services minus services such as emergency, pharmacy, pathology, diagnostic imaging, community health services, district nursing services and other outreach services.

People treated as inpatients or emergencies = the number of admitted patient episodes plus the number of emergency services not resulting in admission. For example, some people will attend the Emergency Department and then be admitted to hospital. These people will only be counted once as inpatients and not counted as emergency patients for this particular figure.

People admitted to hospital = the number of admitted patient episodes of care. For example, one person might be admitted to hospital on two separate occasions, they would then be counted as two episodes of care.

People treated in emergency departments = the number of accident and emergency services provided. For example, a patient attends emergency three times, then it is counted as three separate attendances to the emergency department.

People received elective surgery = the number of people admitted for elective surgery from the elective surgery waiting list in either Category 1, 2 or 3.

People waiting for elective surgery = the number of patients waiting for elective surgery from Category 1, 2 or 3 with a status of ‘waiting’ or ‘booked’.

Elective Surgery Categories

Category 1 – Urgent Admission within 30 days desirable, for a condition that has the potential to deteriorate quickly to the point that it may become an emergency.

Category 2 – Semi-urgent Admission within 90 days desirable, for a condition causing some pain, dysfunction or disability, but which is not likely to deteriorate quickly or become an emergency.

Category 3 – Non-urgent Admission at some time in the future acceptable, for a condition causing minimal or no pain, dysfunction or disability, which is unlikely to deteriorate quickly and which does not have the potential to become an emergency.

Long-wait is the term applied to any waiting time that exceeds the recommendation for that category.