Hospitals road test emergency department software
Monday 30 March 2009
Two applications developed by the Australian e-Health Research Centre (AEHRC) for improving management of hospital emergency departments are being evaluated in Queensland.
The Queensland Emergency Medicine Research Foundation announced last week that it is providing $160 000 to fund evaluations of these two ICT-based projects.
The Patient Admission Prediction Tool (PAPT) is software that accurately predicts how many patients will present at hospital emergency departments, their expected medical needs and the number of hospital admissions.
Designed in close consultation with those who will ultimately use it, PAPT allows on-the-ground staff to see what the patient load will be like in the next hour, the rest of the day, into next week, or even on holidays with varying dates, such as Easter.
This funding supports a twelve month evaluation of PAPT at Gold Coast Hospital.
Also at Gold Coast Hospital is another twelve month trial evaluating the impact on the hospital's emergency department when another opened at their nearby Robina campus.
Common sense suggests a new emergency department would be a good thing for patients and the ambulance service, but very little research exists to prove this.
The AEHRC's health data integration software linked ambulance and emergency department data to reveal the flow of patients from when they were picked up to their discharge from hospital.
A study of a month before and after the new department opened showed there was a reduced length of stay and associated improved health outcomes. The new study will test if this is a lasting effect.
The Australian e-Health Research Centre is a joint venture between CSIRO and the Queensland Government.