The Frankston Hospital Emergency Department (ED) has implemented unique initiatives that have dramatically improved ramping times, freeing up more ambulances to return into the community.
“It’s widely shared with the team that we’re now the highest performing in the state for our AV (Ambulance Victoria) offload times,” says ED Nurse Unit Manager, Sarah Morriss. “And not having a bay full of ambulances improves the sense of being efficient and calm – if Emergency can ever be calm.”
Peninsula Health has now achieved something that no other Victorian health service has done.
Since January, it’s managed to essentially halve its typical handover time for ambulance patients. Year-on-year, Frankston Hospital has reduced its transfer times by two-thirds.
One of the initiatives put in place in the ED was the introduction of a dedicated AV Offload Nurse, rostered on afternoon shifts at the department’s busiest time.
Sarah describes the role as pivotal in helping with the flow of patients through the department. The AV Offload Nurse works closely with the Triage Nurse and Nurse In Charge to offload patients to the best and most appropriate area of the Emergency Department, and ensures that the strict model of care is being followed.
Staff have welcomed the additional resource and the extra support the role provides.
“What it does is creates awareness of the direction that our department wants to take in prioritising our ambulances back into the community,” Sarah says. “Just having a separate role reinforces the culture around [long offload times] being unacceptable.”
Sarah has more than 25 years of experience in the Emergency Department – and as Nurse Unit Manager enjoys having a strong influence on how the department serves the community. The task to improve ambulance offload times as been an opportunity to revisit the way the service operates, and has resulted in other improvements, including changing the way short-stay beds and ED cubicles are arranged, to ensure there is always capacity to manage the most acutely unwell patients.
Although the AV Offload Nurse position is just one of several initiatives that have contributed to the top-performing ramping results, it’s one of the most visible.
“It absolutely improves staff wellbeing and even patient wellbeing,” says Sarah. “I think they can see that we’re managing our workflow because we don’t have a big line of ambulances out the door. And when we do have that influx, we’re actually able to manage our demand.”