----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Kerner"
Subject: Re: Emergency Services Collabarative
> Yep...this all sounds familar..project managers..facilatators....data
> collection...patient tracking....
> I keep telling them that the problem lies outside the dept...thats why we
> keep seeing 4 day old ear aches, and well kids with temps...
Ah, but you've got to look in "both" directions, Adrian. Reducing demand for
our services might prove impossible, though many are experimenting with ways
to divert that demand away from emergency departments, as in the BMJ article
that you've cited. No, it's what happens to our admitted patients several
days or a week down the line that's interesting. It's getting these patients
through the system quickly to discharge that's proving to be the most
challenging.
The ESC looks at the whole patient journey, from prehospital through
hospital admission right through to discharge, and getting the other
specialties on board is our biggest challenge. Many of us will fail our
four-hour targets this month, but most of us will fail, not because of our
management of minor illness and injury, but because of lack of bed capacity,
or misuse of that capacity, and related to insufficient intermediate care
facilities, inefficient use of social services, and so on and so forth.
Trolley waits in our emergency departments are merely a barometer of the
efficiency or otherwise of the whole acute health care system in our
particular locality.
Adrian Fogarty
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