Sickie service centres? New name needed for Qld’s satellite hospitals
It’s the conundrum we were warned about. Queensland’s satellite hospitals aren’t actually hospitals. So what should they be called?
QLD News
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The Queensland government is currently deciding on the new name for satellite hospitals as a clinical advisory group presented a short list of options to Health Minister Tim Nicholls last Friday.
“The results of a name change survey were put to a clinical advisory group to review and submit a report by January 17 and we look forward to the government’s announcement of the results,” president of the Australian Medical Association Queensland Nick Yim said.
The AMAQ is working with the government to re-evaluate satellite hospitals in a bid to make them operate with top-level patient care and cost efficiency.
The president said that there was no point in identifying the number of patients who presented to a satellite hospital without demonstrating what the numbers mean for the patient care and the cost to government.
The Labor government on Tuesday announced that more than 130,000 people presented to satellite hospitals in just over a year “highlighting the success in diverting non-urgent cases away from busy hospital emergency departments”.
One of the AMAQ’s top priorities is to enusre there is a public education campaign put in place “to prevent a repeat of the confusion caused by their original operation”.
More than 2700 health workers were surveyed over the name change and only five per cent of them were happy with the current name.
Between July and September last year almost 2000 category one and two patients turned up to six satellite hospitals across the South East, up from 1578 patients the previous quarter.
Another 10,424 category three patients attended satellite hospitals instead of an emergency department. The satellite hospitals do not cater for life-threatening cases.
What do you think they should be called? Have your say in the comments?
Originally published as Sickie service centres? New name needed for Qld’s satellite hospitals
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