About the Access Unit
The Access Unit forms part of the new Acute Operations and Hospital Performance division reporting to Executive Director, Lee Martin. Other departments within this division include Decision Support Services, Emergency Department, Health Information services, ICT, NICU, PICU, Service Redesign and Strategy and Service Development.
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Revised RCH Access Policy in effect from 10th March 2009.
- External Bed Managers contact numbers
The last few years have seen a significant increase in demand pressures on public acute health care. These pressures are most commonly reflected in increases in elective surgery waiting list, operation cancellations and delays in access through emergency.
The identification of contributing factors to these demand pressures requires further analysis, planning and strategic development within RCH.
The Access Unit is coordinating a systems approach to reviewing current patient management practices. It requires a collaborative approach across the organization from all staff.
The access unit supports the day to day (24hour) patient management and also assists in the identification of areas for improvement and support for the necessary change in practice. The access unit is also responsible for the ongoing monitoring of access KPI's and supports other key indicators and evaluation methods. The key areas of focus are patient management, bed management, resources and innovation.
An essential attribute of a high quality health system is that patients receive appropriate access to the health services they require. A coordinated and integrated approach is therefore required to achieve the necessary resource allocation to safely meet the demand for emergency, critical care, elective and ongoing health care services.
The role of the access unit is to work with all staff to facilitate processes to ensure that the right patient is in the right bed at the right time.