Australian emergency
September 12, 2012
THE average Australian Emergency
Department has 22.6 patients
under treatment, and a further 6.8
waiting to be seen, according to the
latest “snapshot” of Australia’s
Emergency Departments.
The snapshot was undertaken on
03 September and saw researchers
from the Australian National University
contact all accredited Emergency
Departments in Australia to find
out how many patients were being
treated and whether they were
waiting for inpatient beds.
According to the results, of those
patients under treatment, on
average 8.4 were waiting for
inpatient beds, representing 37% of
the patient workload.
Of these, 73% were experiencing
access block, that is, they had already
been in the ED more than 8 hours.
“On average, the situation is about
the same as previous years, with
around one-third of the nationwide
ED workload being caring for
patients whose emergency
treatment has finished”, said
Associate Prof Drew Richardson,
the author of the study.
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