Hospitals' Emergency Sections To Get Computer Upgrade
The Age
Monday November 7, 1994
Case-mix funding could soon be extended to the accident and emergency sections of Victoria's hospitals after the State Government announced the introduction of a $1million computer system to collect data about emergency patients.
The Minister for Health, Mrs Tehan, said yesterday that data collected from the new computer system - which will operate in 26 of the state's largest hospitals - would eventually lead to improvements in the accident and emergency departments of public hospitals.
But the Opposition immediately dismissed the funding boost as a Band- Aid solution, and called for money to be directed to providing beds instead of computers.
Mrs Tehan said the collection and analysis of the patient data should cut prolonged stays in accident and emergency departments, and streamline the management and administration of those sections.
Mrs Tehan said many hospitals had already told the Health Department they would like case-mix funding to be extended to the accident and emergency sections. Case-mix funding applies across the rest of the hospital system.
``But until we know just what we're doing there (accident and emergency sections), we can't provide the formula to fund that," she said.
She said that after the data was analysed, resources could be directed to the areas they were most needed. In the past, Mrs Tehan said, such funding decisions had often been based on hunches and were ``hit-and- miss".
But the Opposition's spokesman for health, Mr Thwaites, said the evidence was already clear that accident and emergency departments in the state's public hospitals were under enormous pressure.
``Computers are OK, but the problem is not computers - the problem is lack of beds and lack of hospital staff. That's the reason why hundreds of patients are lying for up to 48 hours on hospital trolleys unable to get an emergency or a hospital bed," he said.
Mr Thwaites also released a letter from the Monash Medical Centre to the Health Department's regional director, outlining the effects of the Government's recent decision to cap the bonus funding pool.
``This capping of purchasing by the department will significantly compromise the operations of our accident and emergency department (by reducing bed access) and will lead to a significant increase in waiting list numbers and times (due to reduced beds and theatre sessions)," the letter states.
Several major hospitals have announced recently that they are considering cutting staff and services to deal with funding problems caused by the cap on the bonus funding pool. The pool was set up to reward hospitals which treat more than their targeted number of patients.
© 1994 The Age
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