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Service Agreement - Department of Health Tasmania: 2018, Emergency Department - Total time (hours) spent by ambulance presentations in offload delay, 2018

Identifying and definitional attributes

Metadata item type:Help on this termIndicator
Indicator type:Help on this termIndicator
Short name:Help on this termAmbulance offload delay (hours)
Synonymous names:Help on this termAmbulance offload delay; Ambulance ramping
METEOR identifier:Help on this term698666
Registration status:Help on this term
  • Tasmanian Health, Superseded 24/07/2019
Description:Help on this term

This indicator measures the amount of time, in hours, that ambulance presentation to an emergency department resulted in offload delay (delay from triage time to handover time of more than 15 minutes and 30 minutes). Ambulance offload delay is measured from when triage occurred while the care of the patient was still under the responsibility of ambulance officers until the care was fully transferred to the emergency department.

Rationale:Help on this term

The Emergency Care Network Steering Committee and the Tasmanian Ambulance Service set the benchmark of 15 minutes and 30 minutes for a safe and timely transfer of a patient from the care of ambulance crew to emergency department staff.

A patient is considered to have Ambulance Offload Delay (AOD) when they are still under the care of ambulance crew 15 minutes and 30 minutes after their arrival to the emergency department. The amount of time spent AOD is set to zero at the 15 minutes and 30 minutes mark.

Indicator set:Help on this termService Plan - Department of Health Tasmania: 2018
Tasmanian Health, Superseded 24/07/2019
Outcome area:Help on this termEmergency Department access
Tasmanian Health, Standard 07/12/2016

Collection and usage attributes

Computation:Help on this term

The definitions applied were set by the Emergency Care Network Steering Committee. The definitions include presentations that have been assigned a triage category between 1 and 5.  Presentations that are 'dead on arrival' are excluded for the purpose of calculating this indicator.

Ambulance offload delay is calculated for ambulance presentations by subtracting the date and time the patient was triaged from the date and time the patient was transferred to the care of the emergency department. Ambulance offload delay has occurred when this figure is greater than 15 minutes (being 15:59) or 30 minutes (being 30:59).

The amount of ambulance offload delay time is set to zero at the 15 minute mark; consequently a patient who waited for 20 minutes would have an ambulance offload delay time of 5 minutes.

The amount of ambulance offload delay time is set to zero at the 30 minute mark; consequently a patient who waited for 35 minutes would have an ambulance offload delay time of 5 minutes.

See Australasian Triage Scale from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine for a description of each triage category, including indicative clinical descriptors.

The indicator is presented as total time, in hours.

Numerator:Help on this term

Total time of ambulance presentations with delay from triage to handover time greater than 15 minutes and 30 minutes, converted into hours

Numerator data elements:Help on this term
Data Element / Data Set

Establishment—organisation identifier, (Tasmanian) identifier NNNN

Data Element / Data Set

Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—triage category, (Tasmanian) code N

Guide for use

Data is obtained from the [TriageCategoryRefId] field in Health Central and includes records with the triage categories from 1 to 5.

Data Element / Data Set

Emergency department stay—ambulance offload delay, total minutes NNNNN

Guide for use

Only includes records which ambulance offload delay time is over 15 and 30 minutes.

Data is obtained from the following data fields in Health Central:

Calculated by subtracting the date and time the patient has been transferred to the care of emergency department staff minus the date and time the patient was triaged when greater than 15 and 30 minutes.

Computation methods:

SUM total time spent in ED locations where the stay segments contain a [LocationDescription] field of ('Ambulance Waiting' OR  'Ramp' OR 'RAMPING' OR 'OFFLOAD DELAY' OR 'OFFLOAD BAY (RAMPING)' OR 'RRAMP' OR 'AW').  The total time spent in any of these locations should be calculated by the formula:  ([StaySegmentEndDateTime] - [TriageStartDateTime]).

 Where the SUM total of time spent in the above location/stay segments is > than 15 and 30 minutes*.

* an ambulance offload delay time of over 15 minutes being below 15:59 seconds and 30 minutes being below 30:59 seconds.

Note: A patient with a waiting time (i.e. the time between being triaged at the emergency department but still under the care of the ambulance crew and the time they are attended to by emergency department staff) of 16 minutes, is considered to have has an ambulance offload delay of 1 minute.

 

Data Element / Data Set

Emergency department stay—service delivery location, text X[X(49)]

Guide for use

Computation methods:

Royal Hobart Hospital

Data is obtained from the [LocationDescription] field in Health Central where the location is recorded as Ambulance waiting.

Data Element / Data Set

Episode of care—episode identifier, N[NNNNNN]

Guide for use

Data is obtained from the [EmergencyIdentifier] field in Health Central.

Data Element / Data Set

Emergency department stay—physical departure date, DDMMYYYY

Guide for use

Data is obtained from the [DepartureDateTime] field in Health Central.

Data Element / Data Set

Emergency department stay—physical departure time, hhmm

Guide for use

Data is obtained from the [DepartureDateTime] field in Health Central.

Denominator:Help on this term

No denominator

Disaggregation:Help on this term

Specified disaggregation: Hospital, triage category and reporting month based on the date of the end of the emergency department stay

Disaggregation data elements:Help on this term
Data Element / Data Set

Establishment—organisation identifier, (Tasmanian) identifier NNNN

Data Element / Data Set

Non-admitted patient emergency department service episode—triage category, (Tasmanian) code N

Data Element / Data Set

Emergency department stay—physical departure date, DDMMYYYY

Guide for use

Data is obtained from the [DepartureDateTime] field in Health Central.

Data Element / Data Set

Emergency department stay—physical departure time, hhmm

Guide for use

Data is obtained from the [DepartureDateTime] field in Health Central.

Representational attributes

Representation class:Help on this termCount
Data type:Help on this termReal
Unit of measure:Help on this termTime (e.g. days, hours)
Format:Help on this term

NNN[N]

Accountability attributes

Reporting requirements:Help on this term
  • 2018-19 Service Agreement

Relational attributes

Related metadata references:Help on this term
Supersedes Service Agreement - Department of Health and Human Services Tasmania: 2017, EFF3-4, Emergency Department - Total time (hours) spent by ambulance presentations in offload delay, 2017
  • Tasmanian Health, Superseded 28/03/2019
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