Emergency Department overcrowding isn’t caused by unnecessary visits

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-12-01 00:01

New Zealand

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Patients who should have gone elsewhere aren’t to blame for overcrowding in Emergency Departments, according to a Viewpoint article in the New Zealand Medical Journal. Instead, there appears to have been an increase in the proportion of more urgent cases coming to Emergency Departments over time. The authors point out that visits to Emergency Departments in New Zealand are low by world standards, and say there is little wriggle room to further reduce them. Ultimately, they say that hospitals need more resources to deal with these normal demands for emergency care.

Media release

From: Pasifika Medical Association Group

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, there may be little or no room to move with respect to reducing emergency department (ED) utilisation, as ED utilisation in Aotearoa New Zealand is low by world standards and is not driven by patients presenting inappropriately with minor conditions. We should continue the excellent work done in the primary care sector to maintain our low ED presentation rate and support primary and urgent care providers to provide alternatives to the ED for people with minor conditions. However, to reduce the system pressure and harms caused by ED crowding due to access block for admitted patients, we also need to adequately resource our hospital-based inpatient teams and EDs so that the (appropriate) acute care workload can be managed safely.

Journal/
conference: New Zealand Medical Journal

Organisation/s:

Funder: NA

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