The identification of the “non-medical” acute medical hospital admission in a regional Australian hospital ($30,000 co-fund) – Assoc Prof Michael Buist
In every hospiatl in Australia, patients are admitted for genuine medical and surgical conditions that can only be given in the hospital setting. Hoewever, there are a large number of patients that get admitted simply because hospital admission is the only alternative care option when care at home is not viable. Some of these presentations and admissions are for people that need end of life care, aged care assessment, and often for just purely social reasons. Regardless, all these patients, receive currently the full medical model of care, simply because they have had to present to a hospital. This full medical model of care involves multiple assessments from medical students up to consultants that are often repeated when the patients change location, radiological and laboratory investigations and high intensity nurse and allied health care. If there was a reliable way to distinguish these two groups of patients then it may be possible to design a care pathway that was more appropriate to the needs of the patients who do not have a true active medical condition. If this was the case then more focussed, appropriate and possibly cheaper care strategies could be tested. The potential savings to the Australian health care system could be significant if a more client problem approach was taken to patients who present to hospital.
The aim of this research project it is develop a predictive tool or scoring system that will allow staff in hospital emergency departments to distinguish between the patients that needs genuine hospiatal type medical care as opposed to the patients that need a more problem orientated patient care mangement with less medical interventions.
Tasmania's Clifford Craig Medical Research Trust was established in 1991.