Surgery wait times across New England hospitals have been slashed in the past 12 months.
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Data released from the Bureau of Health Information on Thursday revealed orthopedadic procedures at Armidale Hospital are being processed on average 42 days faster than the same time [January to March] last year.
Wait times for cataract extraction have also been shaved back by 84 days from 338 to 254.
Hunter New England Health Executive Director of Rural and Regional Health Services, Susan Heyman, said the trend was the result of effective patient preparation by management and staff.
“Making sure that systems and processes are in place for people who need pre-care for their theatre such as that they are given good information about fasting and other things so the process can run smoothly,” she said.
Mrs Heyman said it was also about working closely with doctors to accurately judge the clinical needs of the patients.
“We’re really monitoring the clinical needs of patients and making sure that the surgery is done in the clinically appropriate time frame,” she said.
“We are being really clear, working closely with doctors, to make sure people are getting the right care when they need it.”
And it’s working – all wait times fell within the clinically recommended time-frames for urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent – even with a 5.6 per cent spike state-wide in procedures since the same period last year.
Semi and non-urgent average wait times have decreased significantly from 64 to 53 days and 322 to 286 respectively. And the average time to wait for urgent surgery at Armidale Hospital was 16 days.
Emergency department wait times also came in below the state average of two hours and 41 minutes.
“The median time for leaving the emergency department was a little more than two hours,” she said.