NEW HOSPITAL INPATIENT DASHBOARD
Date:
Wed, 27/07/2011
Spokesperson:
Government of South Australia Real time information about the number of inpatients being treated in South Australia’s metropolitan hospitals is now available on the SA Health web site.
Health Minister John Hill said the public launch of the inpatient dashboard follows the release of the Emergency Department dashboard last month – since when it’s been viewed over 16,000 times.
“South Australia is the first state in the country to make this level of detailed information about both inpatient units and EDs available to the public in real time,” Minister Hill said.
“The SA inpatient dashboard is the only one to provide real time, detailed information on the number of inpatients at each hospital.
“As with the ED dashboard, the inpatient data is updated every half hour and includes information on bed occupancy, average length of stay and inpatient flows.
“The dashboard also includes information specific to each hospital about the number of patients currently within each area of the hospital, such as medical, surgical or critical care.
The inpatient and ED dashboards are currently used by hospital staff as one of many tools to manage and monitor patient flows.
“The dashboards provide people with a better understanding about how patient flow is managed in busy hospitals and helps to make our public health system even more transparent,” Minister Hill said.
“Inpatient demand does fluctuate, but the extra capacity that we are building into the system and the hard work of doctors, nurses and hospital staff means this demand is always met.
As our population ages, we will require more health care so we’re preparing for the future by increasing capacity, redeveloping every metropolitan hospital and building the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.
We have added over 200 beds to the metropolitan system since coming to Government and we have about another 250 beds to be delivered by projects that are currently underway.
“Inpatient information for our country hospitals will be included in the dashboards later this year and there are also plans for an elective surgery dashboard to complement the regular updates and information on waiting times that are already posted by SA Health.”
Clinicians and other hospital staff were involved in selecting which data should be included in the dashboards.
