Projects at Southland Hospital have led to staff being "more efficient and thoughtful" in the way they dealt with emergency department patients, Southland chief medical officer David Tulloch says.
He told the Southern District Health Board's hospitals' advisory committee that patient flow through emergency departments was affected by physical, and "structural" impediments and "attitude of mind".
In Southland , he said better interaction through the whole of the hospital had resulted in improvement.
He said he was not saying this to be critical of Dunedin Hospital - "I don't have that oversight". Dunedin has been struggling to get anywhere near the national target that 95% of patients attending the emergency department should stay no longer than six hours. In the past year, the closest the hospital came to reaching the target was 78.13% in April.
In recent months Southland has been achieving figures of between 90 and 92%.
Mr Tulloch said though there was a higher than national average attendance in Southland, there were differences in the way patients "filter through" in Invercargill.
Southland chief operating officer Lexie O'Shea said significant changes had resulted from a series of projects.
People were now accepting, for example, such changes as discharging patients from in-patient wards by 10am.
The length of stays in Dunedin ED has been under scrutiny by the National Health Board team assessing systems at the hospital.
The draft findings were reported to staff this week, with the final report expected to be made public late next week.
