Elective surgery increases at Logan Hospital

A sharp rise in elective surgery procedures has been recorded at Logan Hospital in the past three months, according to the latest Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report.

The report for the September quarter 2008 shows Logan Hospital treated 1084 patients from the elective surgery waiting list - an increase of almost 13 per cent on the same period last year.

Mr Robertson said the Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report showed the Bligh Government’s $10 billion Health Action Plan was delivering significantly improved health services for Queenslanders.

“Our $10 billion Health Action plan is transforming health services in Queensland, and there’s no better proof of this than the amount of elective surgery being performed at Logan Hospital,” he said.

“This increase is part of a trend across the State, which has seen a record number of elective surgery procedures performed in Queensland public hospitals in the last three months.

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.

Mr Robertson said Logan Hospital provided almost 32,000 outpatient appointments at its specialist outpatient clinics in the September 2008 quarter – up 5 per cent on the same quarter last year.

“Inpatient admissions were also up 1.5 per cent from the same time last year, while the hospital’s Emergency Department continues to be one of the busiest in Queensland, with 15,021 people attending in the September 2008 quarter.

“This is an average of 163 people receiving medical attention each day,” he said.

The report card also showed that no category 1 or 2 elective surgery patients waited longer than the recommended time for surgery.

“The staff have been doing a wonderful job keeping up with the increasing workload, and I have nothing but praise for their hard work,” Mr Robertson said.

The Quarterly Public Hospitals Performance Report (June 08 quarter) is available in the ‘What's New’ section of the Queensland Health website at 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’.