The Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing has published its report on Emergency department care 2020 - 2021.
The Australasian College of Emergency Medicine have used the release of the report to state the Australian health care is not fit for purpose claiming “too many Australians are facing distressingly long, and potentially dangerous waits, for the next stage of their care, after presenting to emergency departments”.
ACEM goes on to say LOS has increased with people waiting to be admitted to an ED suffering the longest delays. Further, it says an increase of emergency presentations of 3.2% represents 200,000 people needing acute care year on year adding increased pressure on the health care systems as there has not been relative increased funding to meet this demand.
The statistics showed kids and older adults are more likely to receive ED care in 2020-2021.
-
patients aged <4 years (who make up 7% of the population) accounted for 10% of presentations
-
patients aged 65> (who make up 16% of the population) accounted for 21% of presentations
-
Males accounted for 49% of presentations and females 51%.
Other takeaways include:
-
In 2020-2021 67% of ED visits were completed within 4 hours down from 72% in 2016–17.
-
90% of ED visits were completed within 8 hours in 2020–21—an increase of 1 hour since 2016–17 when 90% of visits were completed within 7 hours.
Are you an Emergency Medicine specialist interested in working in Australia? Contact Alasdair Spinner at Spinner Medical Recruitment for a friendly, confidential discussion. Email alasdair@spinnermedical.com or call/message +44 7414 531 583.
*These stats only include presentations to public hospitals. For more information please see:
https://acem.org.au/News/ACEM-responds-to-AIHW-emergency-department-care-re and
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports-data/myhospitals/