A patient may be 'ready for care' or 'not ready for care'. Ready for care patients are those who are prepared to be admitted to hospital or to begin the process leading directly to admission. Not ready for care patients are those who are not in a position to be admitted to hospital. These patients are either: - Staged patients whose medical condition will not require or be amenable to surgery until some future date; for example, a patient who has had internal fixation of a fractured bone and who will require removal of the fixation device after a suitable time; or deferred patients who for personal reasons are not yet prepared to be admitted to hospital; for example, patients with work or other commitments which preclude their being admitted to hospital for a time.
- Not ready for care patients could be termed staged and deferred waiting list patients, although currently health authorities may use different terms for the same concepts.
Staged and deferred patients should not be confused with patients whose operation is postponed for reasons other than their own unavailability, for example; surgeon unavailable, operating theatre time unavailable owing to emergency workload. These patients are still 'ready for care'. Patients who are not ready for care should be excluded from calculation. Waiting time is as defined in Waiting time at a census date. It is calculated by subtracting the Listing date for care from the Census date, minus any days when the patient was 'not ready for care', and also minus any days the patient was waiting with a less urgent clinical urgency category than their clinical urgency category at the census date. Indicator procedures as defined in the Tasmanian wait list procedure code (TWLPC) set and specify which procedures are included in the calculation of this indicator in accordance with national definitions. The indicator is calculated separately for each of the three urgency categories and presented as an average (days). See Tasmanian wait list procedure code (TWLPC) for a list of indicator procedures. The definitions applied are consistent with the national definitions used for reporting against the National Partnership Agreement on Improving Public Hospital Services. |