Melbourne’s St Vincent's Hospital aiming to improve Indigenous care

ABC NEWS (Australia)

First Nations patients often experience longer wait times than non-Indigenous patients when presenting at hospital emergency departments.  An innovative triage program at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne is closing this gap by fast-tracking indigenous patients who can often present with complex health conditions.

Transcript

00:00Emergency departments these days, they're very busy places.

00:07So every patient that comes here, we've got multiple different policies, procedures, guidelines

00:12to get that right care to the right patient at the right time.

00:16Historically, First Nations patients haven't felt like these are culturally safe environments for them.

00:22The other thing about First Nations patients when they present

00:25is that the urgency of their presentation sometimes can't be apparent until you've got them in and assessed them.

00:32It's really important that we provide equity for all our patients.

00:37And there are certain cohorts, including First Nations patients, that just need a little bit of extra assistance.

00:42Their health conditions are very complex.

00:44They suffer a much greater proportion of serious chronic illness

00:49and things like homelessness, drug and alcohol problems, social disadvantage.

00:54So with an equity lens, giving them the additional supports they need, like we do for many other groups, is really important to us.

01:02Our First Nations patients were waiting two to three times as long for care in certain triage categories

01:09and also weren't waiting for care three times more often than non-First Nations patients.

01:15When we looked at that data, we started looking at ways that we could improve our care for that cohort of patients.

01:21The gap has closed in terms of waiting times. There is no gap.

01:24I looked at the data from the last three months this morning.

01:27And in fact, there is no gap between our First Nations and non-First Nations patients in terms of waiting for care.

01:32Essentially what we aim for is no difference.

01:35Any patient coming with severe life-threatening problems, they are unaffected by this policy.

01:40If you come here with a serious life-threatening problem, we will make sure we get to you immediately.

01:45I want to be absolutely clear that this policy has not resulted in any increased waiting times for any non-First Nations patients.

01:52We value every single patient that comes here to see us.

01:56We want to provide equity of care for everyone, so everyone gets the care they need or want when they need it.

02:02We吧 with that information and everybody gets the same as a user.

02:03They are really

02:09available to see us when we are included in the database in the database.

02:12With that attention and how to get the escaped from the agency, I want to Tribe throat or the

02:13auto Ecologic Aidpties or my mother могу, where we need all of that information.

02:15With that control, I have the right- Becky.

02:17What does that control my coronary agentally go to the doctor's mayor about the decision?

02:19I know that if you are, please pay attention to the disks and she will turn it over to the

02:20sentenced retti-point list.

02:22You can see our localaws at the病院 who can take advantage of any of this.

02:25It means that you need go over to next few years and they need it.

02:26And they need it.

02:27Completely hinting up the surroundings from us as well as the elderlyточants in particular

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