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Emergency care
Emergency departments
Public hospital emergency departments meet the immediate health care needs of the community, including treatment of medical emergencies.
What happens at an Emergency Department?
usually by a nurse
is identified
'triage' category
treatment waiting area
The Government sets targets for hospitals in consultation with hospital staff and clinical groups to encourage achievement of national standards of care. The Government monitors hospital performance against these targets for the most urgent patients (triage categories 1-3) to encourage hospitals to treat as many patients within the desirable times as possible.
This site allows you to search individual public hospitals and view their performance against the national standards as listed in the table below.
| Emergency department triage categories |
National standards - desirable treatment times |
Targets |
|---|---|---|
|
1 Resuscitation For example:
|
Seen immediately |
100 per cent seen within desirable time |
|
2 Emergency For example:
|
Seen within 10 minutes |
80 per cent seen within desirable time |
|
3 Urgent For example:
|
Seen within 30 minutes |
75 per cent seen within desirable time |
4 Semi-urgent For example:
|
Seen within one hour |
No target set |
|
5 Non-urgent For example:
|
Seen within two hours |
No target set |
What happens in the treatment area?
treated by members of the
health care team
x-rays or other investigations
other health professionals
(e.g. physios, social workers)
and are able to go home
to hospital for more treatment
Treatment in the emergency department
Some patients are treated in the emergency department and are then able to go home. Others require further treatment
Admission from emergency department to hospital beds
Where patients require admission to a hospital bed for further treatment, hospitals aim to transfer them from the emergency department to a hospital bed in a timely manner, taking their condition into consideration.
Why does hospital bypass happen?
Hospital bypass is a period of time when a public hospital emergency department can request that ambulances bypass it and take patients to other hospitals. However, even when a hospital is on bypass, urgent patients will be accepted.
A hospital may request a period of bypass when:
- the emergency department is full and it cannot safely accommodate and treat more patients
- there are unexpected factors (for example, power failure) that would compromise the treatment of existing patients in the emergency department.
The most frequent reason for requesting hospital bypass is that an emergency department is full. There are a number of reasons why an emergency department might be unable to accept more patients.
- Patient numbers in emergency departments often vary. There are times (for example, during winter) when there can be unusually high numbers of people coming to emergency department.
- Some patients have more urgent or more acute problems than others, which require the attention of expert hospital staff.
- In some areas the hospital emergency department is one of the few local health care providers after hours and on weekends. Patients may come to the emergency department who would otherwise visit their GP.
Other factors relate to the demand on the hospital generally:
- Patients admitted to hospital from the emergency department require a bed in the hospital. As the hospital workload is unpredictable, a bed may not be immediately available, and patients may have to wait in the emergency department until one becomes ready.
- Patients in the emergency department may need tests performed or periods of observation.
