Summer alcohol-related emergency department workload and occupancy in Australasia 2019-2022.

Objective: Alcohol is a major public health issue and the ACEM funds regular 'snapshot' surveys of the prevalence of alcohol-related presentations in EDs. The present study uses these data to investigate ED occupancy and alcohol- and methamphetamine-related presentations at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Survey-based point prevalence study of EDs in Australia and New Zealand conducted at 02:00 hours local time on the Saturday of the weekend before Christmas in 2019-2022.

Access block in Australian emergency departments 2017-2020.

Objective: To describe Australian ED workload over the period 2017-2020 using data from twice annual Access Block Point Prevalence Studies, and to identify any impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: Retrospective analysis of demand and occupancy data provided by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine accredited EDs in voluntary surveys at the start of June and September 2017-2020. Hospitals answering all surveys were grouped and compared by jurisdiction and role delineation.

Effects of a hospital-wide intervention on emergency department crowding and quality: A prospective study.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the impact of a management-supported, multimodal, hospital-wide intervention on ED crowding and quality measures.

Methods: This is a prospective descriptive study of the first 20 weeks of the intervention, with 3 years of historical controls. The study was conducted in a 600 bed adult/paediatric tertiary hospital with 80 000 ED presentations annually.

Perceptions of Australasian emergency department staff of the impact of alcohol-related presentations.

Objectives: To survey emergency department (ED) clinical staff about their perceptions of alcohol-related presentations.

Design, Setting And Participants: A mixed methods online survey of ED clinicians in Australia and New Zealand, conducted from 30 May to 7 July 2014.

Main Outcome Measures: The frequency of aggression from alcohol-affected patients or their carers experienced by ED staff; the perceived impact of alcohol-related presentations on ED function, waiting times, other patients and staff.

Survey of alcohol-related presentations to Australasian emergency departments.

Objective: To determine the proportion of alcohol-related presentations to emergency departments (EDs) in Australia and New Zealand, at a single time point on a weekend night shift.

Design, Setting And Participants: A point prevalence survey of ED patients either waiting to be seen or currently being seen conducted at 02:00 local time on 14 December 2013 in 106 EDs in Australia and New Zealand.

Main Outcome Measures: The number of ED presentations that were alcohol-related, defined using World Health Organization ICD-10 codes.

Access block and ED overcrowding.

Prospective and retrospective access block hospital intervention studies from 1998 to 2008 were reviewed to assess the evidence for interventions around access block and ED overcrowding, including over 220 documents reported in Medline and data extracted from The State of our Public Hospitals Reports. There is an estimated 20-30% increased mortality rate due to access block and ED overcrowding. The main causes are major increases in hospital admissions and ED presentations, with almost no increase in the capacity of hospitals to meet this demand.

Myths versus facts in emergency department overcrowding and hospital access block.

Overcrowding occurs when emergency department (ED) function is impeded, primarily by overwhelming of ED staff resources and physical capacity by excessive numbers of patients needing or receiving care. Access block occurs when there is excessive delay in access to appropriate inpatient beds (> 8 hours total time in the ED). Access block for admitted patients is the principal cause of overcrowding, and is mainly the result of a systemic lack of capacity throughout health systems, and not of inappropriate presentations by patients who should have attended a general practitioner.

Tackling the burden of injury in Australasia: developing a binational trauma registry.

Existing trauma registries in Australia and New Zealand play an important role in monitoring the management of injured patients. Over the past decade, such monitoring has been translated into changes in clinical processes and practices. Monitoring and changes have been ad hoc, as there are currently no Australasian benchmarks for "optimal" injury management.

Increase in patient mortality at 10 days associated with emergency department overcrowding.

Objective: To quantify any relationship between emergency department (ED) overcrowding and 10-day patient mortality.

Design And Setting: Retrospective stratified cohort analysis of three 48-week periods in a tertiary mixed ED in 2002-2004. Mean "occupancy" (a measure of overcrowding based on number of patients receiving treatment) was calculated for 8-hour shifts and for 12-week periods.

Emergency response to the Canberra bushfires.

On 18 January 2003, Canberra experienced major bushfires. Over 6 hours, The Canberra Hospital Emergency Department treated 139 patients, 105 with fire-related problems (mostly ophthalmological and respiratory), representing an additional workload of one patient every 4 minutes above average. Only 15% required hospital admission.

The access-block effect: relationship between delay to reaching an inpatient bed and inpatient length of stay.

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between access block in the emergency department (ED) (defined as total time from arrival to transfer from the ED over eight hours) and inpatient length of stay (LOS).

Design And Setting: Retrospective cohort study of all admissions through the ED to a tertiary hospital in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, during 1999.

Main Outcome Measures: Total time in the ED and LOS, calculated in days from ED departure to hospital discharge (non-overnight admissions were assigned LOS of one day, and all LOS were truncated at 10 days).

A comparison of the antemortem clinical diagnosis and autopsy findings for patients who die in the emergency department.

Objectives: In spite of advances in medical technology, there remains a high discrepancy rate between the antemortem clinical diagnosis and postmortem examination diagnosis for patients who die in hospitals. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical and postmortem examination diagnoses of patients who died in the emergency department (ED) of a tertiary hospital, and to analyze any discrepancy between them.

Methods: The study was a retrospective chart review of patients who died in the ED of a tertiary referral teaching hospital and a comparison of the antemortem diagnosis with the autopsy diagnosis.