Transfer delay audit.
The purpose was to determine the average transfer time taken for acute patients to arrive to the medical unit from the time of referral by an A/E officer. We included the first 200 consecutive patients with completed records. 86 were men and 114 women, aged between 14 and 96 years. Transfer time was calculated as the difference from the time of referral by the A/E officer in UCHG to the time of arrival to the medical unit in MPH. The average transfer time for all patients was 91.5 minutes. The longest was in the second (17:00-24:00) interval with a mean of 105 minutes. 26.5% of patients arrived later than 2 hours after referral. Our findings confirm the existence of unacceptably long transfer time for a significant number of patients. Causes for this delay should be searched for to help find and implement solutions.
Alraqi
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S
Hospital Merlin Park, Galway, Dublin. shafeeq@eircom.ie
Coughlan
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R
D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D008297:Male; D008485:Medical Audit; D008875:Middle Aged; D010360:Patient Transfer / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D013997:Time Factors