Patients who require an elective procedure should be assigned an urgency category by the treating clinician. The urgency category should be:
appropriate to the patient and their clinical situation
not influenced by the availability of hospital or surgeon resources.
The following codes are required for the collection of clinical urgency for Elective Surgery Waiting List Patients and the definition of the values are as follows:
1 - Urgent
Procedures that are clinically indicated within 30 days
2 - Semi-urgent
Procedures that are clinically indicated within 90 days
3 - Non-urgent
Procedures that are clinically indicated within 365 days
The remaining values are included in the hospital systems' reference file and are related to others services provided for patient management and should not be used for allocation to Elective Surgery Waiting List Patients.
Comments:
The treating clinician is the clinician with responsibility for the patient at the time of urgency categorisation.
The clinical situation of the patient is taken to encompass the patient's medical condition and the patient's life circumstances, including issues related to activity limitations, restrictions in participation in employment and other life situations, carer responsibilities and access to carer and other supports.
A patient's classification may change if he or she undergoes clinical review during the waiting period. The need for clinical review varies with the patient's condition and is therefore at the discretion of the treating clinician. The waiting list information system should be able to record dates when the classification is changed
Relational attributes
Implementation in Data Set Specifications: All attributes +
