Staying times at Dunedin Hospital's emergency department have improved, a newsletter to general practitioners says.
Southern District Health Board GP liaison officer Dr Anne Worsnop said that since the "6 Hours - It Matters" project began earlier this year the percentage of patients clearing ED within the required six hours had risen from 70% to 82%.
This percentage would be further enhanced when "in another nine months" the 10-bed ED observation unit was functioning, she said.
Dunedin Hospital has been one of the poorest performers in its progress towards meeting the national target - that 95% of patients should spend no longer than six hours in an emergency department before being admitted to hospital or treated and sent home.
GPs have been sent a document summarising proposed changes to ED and asked for comments by Mike Hunter, the clinical champion for the "`6 Hours - It Matters!" project.
Among the document's proposals are that there will be no patients waiting in ED corridors; all patients will be admitted or discharged from the ED within six hours unless there is a compelling clinical reason for them to remain there; and GPs will be able to easily and quickly contact in-patient consultants or registrars.
Clear guidelines will spell out the appropriate service to which patients with particular problems should be referred.
Both GPs and emergency department doctors will be given the guidelines and expected to comply with them.
If a GP considers a patient needs urgent attention from a specialist, the relevant specialty registrar must accept the referral, either by offering to see the patient urgently in ED or arranging an urgent outpatient review, if this is acceptable to the GP and patient.
GPs will be asked to refer to emergency medicine specialists only patients whom they expect to be discharged but who require treatment for injuries or other emergency problems that the GPs cannot provide, such as fractures, complex cuts or investigations they cannot access.
Clinicians should be guided by what is best for the patient and should try to get the patient promptly to the ward or serve best meeting their needs.
"In other words, services should be pulling patients into their service because they think they're the best, not pushing them away," the newsletter states.
Requests for a copy of the full document sent to the GPs have not been responded to by the DHB.
