Emergency rooms hit patient processing target

The adults' emergency department met the target despite seeing 11 per cent more patients from January to June than in the same six months last year. Photo / Thinkstock

Auckland District Health Board is celebrating having at last reached the target for managing patients fast enough in its two emergency departments.

It is the first time since the National Government introduced its quarterly Health Targets in 2009 that Auckland City Hospital and the Starship children's hospital have discharged, admitted or transferred 95 per cent of emergency department patients within six hours.

Chief executive Garry Smith said achieving the target in the April-June quarter was an outstanding result.

The adults' emergency department met the target despite seeing 11 per cent more patients from January to June than in the same six months last year.

The average time patients spent in the department was 3.6 hours in June, in contrast to 6.4 hours in June 2009.

Numerous changes are credited with helping to meet the six-hour target, including the appointment of extra doctors and nurses, the addition of 58 ward beds in 2009/10, and, according to a board report, explaining to health workers in the emergency department and the adjoining admissions and planning unit that complying with the target is "the individual staff member's responsibility".

However, the two emergency departments' combined performance on the target dipped to 91 per cent last month after the arrival of cold weather.

Counties Manukau District Health Board chief executive Geraint Martin said that Middlemore Hospital's emergency department had consistently met the six-hour target since 2009.