Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 April 2022
276. Deputy David Cullinane asked the Minister for Health the estimated direct and indirect impact on mortality rate of patient experience times for emergency department admissions in excess of 12, 24 and 36 hours, in tabular form; the increased rate per 1,000; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21547/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Department is not aware of any study or body of research that has been conducted in Ireland on the correlation between mortality rate and patient experience times for emergency department admissions.
While there has been a recent publication in the Emergency Medicine Journal on this topic, using a cross-sectional, retrospective observational study carried out of patients admitted from every type 1 (major) ED in England between April 2016 and March 2018, making any international comparisons must be treated with caution due to possible differences in the methods of data collection, the scope of data collection, the quality of data collected, definitions and coding practices in different jurisdictions.
From an Irish perspective, it is not possible to link attendances at EDs with records created on the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) Scheme due to the lack of an individual health identifier, making it challenging to replicate the methodology of the EMJ study and link a person's ED attendance with their episode of care on HIPE. It is also currently not possible to link hospital records with vital statistics data from the CSO to establish the 30-day mortality.
Despite the absence of the requisite data to replicate such a study, the Department is committed to the improvement of Patient Experience Times (PET) in line with the National Service Plan 2022. The NSP set a target to have 75% of all attendees aged 75 or over admitted or discharged within 6 hours of registration. The target increases to 99% at 9 hours.
Investment of €1.1bn was provided in budget 2021 to expand capacity, increases services and support reform and this level of investment has been maintained in budget 2022.
