New software promises to reduce bottlenecks in emergency departments

Australian researchers have developed a computer program which is able to accurately predict how many patients can be expected to turn up at hospital emergency departments and their expected medical needs and also promises to reduce bottlenecks in emergency departments.

The software package, developed by the Australian e-Health Research Centre, the 'Patient Admission Prediction Tool' (PAPT), is the result of a collaboration between clinicians from Gold Coast and Toowoomba Hospitals, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology and will enable emergency departments to manage bed space appropriately.

The program has already been trialled at Southport, Robina and Toowoomba Hospitals over the past 12 months and there have been reports of 90% accuracy in predicting the number of patients presenting at the hospitals emergency departments.

Dr. David Hansen, the research director of the Australian e-Health Research Centre, says PAPT will allow emergency admission departments to predict the number of beds needed which will lead to better bed management of the whole system.

Dr. Hansen says the system will hopefully be trialled in the Townsville Hospital in the coming weeks in order to ensure staff have confidence in using the program and are accessing the right data to achieve better planning of hospital resources.

Dr. Hansen says PAPT will allow staff to see what the patient load will be like in the next hour, the rest of the day, into next week, or even on holidays with varying dates, such as Easter and has been shown to vastly improve the successful prediction of patient presentation and admission in two hospitals with very different populations.

Dr. David Green, Director of emergency medicine at the Gold Coast Hospital, says accurate forecasting will assist many areas of health management from basic bed management and staff resourcing to scheduling elective surgery, reduce stress for staff and improving patient outcomes.

Dr. Hansen says the aim is to develop the software package into a product that can be used throughout Queensland.

PAPT was presented at the 2008 Health Informatics Conference held in Melbourne on Monday 1st of September and is a joint venture between CSIRO and the Queensland Government.

The Australian e-Health Research Centre is a leading national research facility for health care innovations in information and communication technologies.