Hawke’s Bay Hospital has been trialling a new triage model to help improve emergency department wait times.
Focused on the older generation, it has been described as a huge success, which all hospitals should be adopting permanently.
However, the programme’s set to wrap up as just as the hospital heads into a busy winter period.
When over 75-year-olds turn up to the ED, they’re met by what’s known as a Gedi nurse — a geriatric ED intervention clinical nurse specialist.
Gedi nurse Lani Preston helps process and diagnose patients getting them to the right ward faster and providing the best immediate care.
“It’s all about starting those early interventions and making sure that these patients aren’t sitting in the waiting room for hours on end,” Preston said.
“We see about 30 to 40 per cent of our ED patients are in the older population and they have different needs and can’t necessarily sit in the waiting room for four hours.”
The model replicates one in a Queensland hospital with a similar population and demographic to Hawke’s Bay.
Preston will typically see five to nine patients a day.
“I absolutely love it, probably the most satisfying and rewarding job that I’ve ever done as a nurse in the last decade.”
“The idea of finishing at the end of June is quite daunting with admission rates going up with the colder weather, and I feel like it’s a role that’s definitely needed to support the emergency department,” Preston said.
Without the new service, some patients could spend up to eight hours in ED.
1News filmed the department on a Wednesday morning and all seats were nearly full.
Emergency department associate clinical nurse manager Carolyn Hegarty said the hospital is at capacity all year round.
“So, unfortunately it means our patients have to stay down in our department for extensive periods and we sometimes put our patients in the corridors because there’s no space for them up in the wards.”
“Today we’ve got 40 patients in the department, 20 of which are in the waiting room and of those 40 patients in the department over 10 of them are over 75, so they’ll be getting GEDI assistance today,” Hegarty said.
Blown away by the success of the new Gedi programme, Hawke’s Bay Hospital is now advocating for all hospitals to implement the approach permanently but as it stands their Gedi nurse Preston won’t last beyond the trial’s end in June.
“My message to the powers that be is find some funding for the role to continue it. It’s proven to be successful in other ED’s and it’s been an incredibly valuable service here,” Hegarty said.
In a statement to 1News, the Health Minister’s office said time needs to be taken to evaluate the trial’s success to ultimately decide on the programme’s future and further funding.