Wollongong hospital has improved its performance for waiting times in the emergency department, and now has a higher percentage of patients than the NSW average starting their treatment "on time".
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For the first time since late 2021, the Illawarra's largest hopsital has reversed its declining performance in the quarterly Bureau of Health Information results when it comes to the percentage of patients leaving the ED within the benchmark of four hours.
The hospital has also shaved almost 15 minutes off its average waiting time for patients in the ED, and is getting admitted patients out of the waiting room and into beds more than two hours faster than the previous quarter.
However, patients still face much longer waits for treatment than before the COVID-19 pandemic, and longer median waits than the NSW and comparable hospitals' average.
From January to March, the median time from arrival to leaving Wollongong ED was four hours and 42 minutes - an improvement of 14 minutes from the previous quarter's record high.
This is significantly longer than the median time for NSW, of three hours and 29 minutes, and comparable hospitals (four hours 23 minutes).
But, where Wollongong was ranked second worst in it its category last quarter for the time spent waiting in the ED, this time there were five other hospitals with longer median wait times.
The result also show that patients who require a bed continue to wait far longer than others, with a median waiting time in Wollongong of nine hours and 13 minutes. This was a vast improvement on the previous quarter, where the average wait for admitted patients was of 11 hours and 23 minutes.
But one in ten patients needing to be admitted remained stuck in the ED for more than a day, with the 90th percentile wait time at 25 hours and 44 minutes.
Something we've experienced in the district, more so than anywhere else in the state, is the number of patients in our acute beds who are waiting for a nursing home. Right now, we've got around 112 people in that situation.
- Margaret Martin
Those who gave up and left stuck around for two hours and 41 minutes on average, but one in ten waited for more than six hours before leaving without treatment.
ISLHD Executive Director Clinical Operations Margaret Martin said Wollongong faced several unique challenges when it came to getting patients through the ED.
"One of the challenges for Wollongong is that it has quite high demand and doesn't have the same bed capacity as some of the other hospitals that it is compared to," she said,
"If you look at some of the bigger hospitals in Sydney, they have 400 to 500 beds, whereas for most of the patients coming in through the emergency department we've got around 300 ED accessible beds.
"The other thing that we've really experienced in the district, more so than anywhere else in the state, is the number of patients in our acute beds who are waiting for a nursing home.
"Right now, we've got around 112 people in that situation."
She said patients were also arriving sicker than in the past, which meant waits for patients who were not as sick would be longer.
Between January to March, Wollongong ED saw the second highest number of patients requiring resuscitation for any quarter on record, as well as the second highest number of patients in the "emergency" category.
"It's not that we don't want to see you in a timely way, but often you get overlooked because of someone's who's much sicker, and that might be someone who's walked in the door or someone who's arrived by ambulance," Ms Martin said.
Despite the continued long waiting times in the ED, Wollongong performed reasonably well when it came to "on time" treatment of patients.
It's performance in this measure saw 68.2 per cent of patients treated on time - up from 63.5 per cent last quarter - compared to 60 per cent at similar hospitals and 67.4 per cent of all patients in NSW.
Ms Martin said Wollongong has always done quite well compared to others in the state with on-time treatment.
"It's a credit to the nursing and medical teams, how they work together, but that's been a real focus for them to really start treatment early, so that plays out in their results," she said.
"Starting treatment on time is really about that first assessment, some bloods being taken and all those things that actually allow us to work out what's wrong with you and then to get you on the right care pathway."
She said the local health district saw ED waiting times and on time treatment as a priority, and had put in place numerous initiatives to improve its performance.
These included the implementation of a virtual hospital ward, hospital in the home initiatives and different pathways which allow patients being seen by paramedics to be treated outside the ED.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
