Emergency Department Attendances, Admissions,...

The ED (emergency department) is a hospital or primary health care service that provides initial treatment to patients with a broad spectrum of illnesses and injuries, some of which may be life-threatening and require immediate attention. EDs provide rapid assessment and management of critical illnesses. After initial assessment and treatment, patients are either admitted to the hospital, stabilised and transferred to another hospital for various reasons, or discharged (Australasian College of Emergency Medicine).Upon arrival in the ED, people usually undergo a brief triage, or interview, to help determine the nature and severity of their illness. Individuals with serious illnesses are then seen by a physician more rapidly than those with less severe symptoms or injuries. The data includes patient attendances, admissions and admissions by Triage for 1 June 2013 to 30 June 2014. Definitions include: Attendances - the number of patients recorded as arriving at a public emergency department. Admissions - the number of patients who are subsequently admitted to the hospital for care and/or treatment.Triage categories are allocated to each patient based on an assessment of their presenting conditions, generally by the triage nurse, with triage 1 being the most urgent and triage 5 being the least urgent. (Triage 1: Resuscitation- immediate, within seconds; Triage 2: Emergency- within 10 minutes; Triage 3: Urgent- within 30 minutes; Triage 4: Semi-urgent- within 60 minutes; Triage 5: Non-urgent - within 120 minutes). N/A - Values is less than 3 and has been suppressed.