EDs ‘canary in coalmine’ of systemic issues in health

NEWS – eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Overflowing Emergency Departments are the canary in the coalmine of major problems in health, and only by addressing the wider system will issues be resolved, the general  manager of the Australian Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) says.

Angie Nguyen Vu participated in a panel at the Health Informatics Conference (HIC2024) in Brisbane in August where she said research shows hospital mortality increases by 67 percent for patients waiting more than 12 hours in ED compared to those who wait six hours.

The panel discussed their involvement in and results of a recent study published in the BMC Health Services Research on patient flow in EDs.

“Ambulance ramping and ED overcrowding is just a symptom of what is happening in the whole health system,” said Nguyen Vu. 

“The ED is the canary where the symptom can be seen, but the coal mine is the whole system where the problem has to be solved.”

She advocated for a multi-faceted, data-driven approach and highlighted ongoing research efforts at the EMF to “systematically examine the magnitude of various factors leading to challenges to emergency access."

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