South Western Sydney Clinical School

Access block and Emergency Department (ED) overcrowding have been described as the most serious issues confronting EDs in the developed world, as these problems compromise the quality and timeliness of patient care. There is an urgent need to understand if the four hour rule was effective in reducing access block and overcrowding, and how patients were affected. The four-hour policy, where most patients must spend less than 4-hours in ED from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge was implemented in WA in 2009, which was followed across Australia in 2012 by the “National Emergency Access Target” policy. We need to find out if the policy has been effective in reducing access block and ED overcrowding.

The main purpose was to validate the impact of the intervention in WA and compare it with similar hospitals in NSW, QLD and ACT using data linkage capability. To assess the impact of the policy, this study used a reference point retrospective data linkage study in WA and conduct comparisons across states on admitted adult patients before and during the implementation of the WA intervention. This is from 2005-2013, from 16 of the busiest hospitals in Australia. Data linkage techniques were used to explore patient as well as hospital key performance indicators. We also use a multilevel analysis approach to assess some of the hospital characteristics.

The findings of this mixed methods study will enable us to assess the effectiveness of policy interventions and translate the recommended evidence based changes into policy and clinical service delivery.

Quantitative Component: Data Linkage data from WA, NSW, QLD and ACT.

Qualitattive component: 119 semistructured interviews across participating hospitals.