HOSPITAL SERVICES REPORT : ACCESS TO EMERGENCY SERVICES - DEC 96
How many patients, classified according to need, are treated in our hospital emergency departments?
Emergency department achievement of ACEM waiting times by triage category 1,2,3,4
1 Waiting times are calculated as the time between presentation at the emergency department and commencement of treatment. The following Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) patient categories and recommended treatment times are used:
Category 1: Resuscitation case requiring immediate treatment, for example, major trauma, cardiac arrest, unconsciousness, shock.
Category 2: Emergency case requiring treatment within 10 minutes, for example, severe trauma, chest pain, severe pain, severe breathing difficulty.
Category 3: Urgent case requiring treatment within 30 minutes, for example, moderate trauma, infection, breathing difficulty.
2 Variation in waiting times may reflect delays in clerical data entry rather than delays in clinical response.
3 Data only for hospitals participating in the Emergency Services Enhancement Program.
4 Percentages are unweighted averages of individual hospitals.
Source: Victorian Emergency Minimum Dataset
