Critical Care Transfers

Victorian hospitals operate as part of a system, with different sites providing differing specialties and complexities. Given this structure and that patients often present at the closest rather than the most suitable facility, some inter-hospital transfers are inevitable and appropriate. However, transfers between acute tertiary hospitals that provide an equivalent level of critical care are, in the majority of cases, inappropriate and should be minimised.

In addition to transfers within the public system, public patients may also be transferred to private hospital intensive care and coronary beds when there are no appropriate critical care beds available in the public system. The use of private sector critical care services, functions as a valuable safety net within a coordinated system. This ensures that public patients can always access critical care in times of peak demand.

In 1998/1999, the Critical Care Inter Hospital Transfer performance bonus was introduced to encourage better demand management and quality of care. Budgetary responsibility for the purchase of private critical care was placed with Health Care Networks and other major metropolitan hospitals. Although this performance bonus has now been removed, critical care inter hospital transfer rates continue to be monitored with the intention of optimising bed availability and reducing the number of inter-hospital transfers of intensive and coronary care patients.