Urgent Care Centre Eligible Presentations in a Remote Emergency Department

Objective: This study aimed to identify presentations to the Alice Springs Emergency Department that could be managed in an Urgent Care Centre (UCC). Methods: We reviewed 1 year of ED presentation data at Alice Springs Hospital (ASH) from August 2022 to August 2023 and used a sequence of exclusion criteria to identify patients most likely to be eligible for UCC management. Results: Our model indicated that 35.0% of ED presentations at ASH during this period could have been managed in a UCC. Only 41.5% of these presentations (14.5% of total presentations) occurred during UCC operating hours. Conclusions: According to this model, a significant proportion of ED presentations could potentially be managed in a UCC, although a large proportion of these occurred outside of UCC opening hours. The impact of the introduction of a UCC into a remote community on ED presentations, patient experience, patient outcomes and the broader system requires further study.

Citation

Johnstone, J., Perry, C., Rigby, E., Capps, L., & Johnson, R. (2025). Urgent Care Centre Eligible Presentations in a Remote Emergency Department. Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA, 37(5), e70135. https://doi.org/10.1111/1742-6723.70135

DOI

10.1111/1742-6723.70135

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14709/681

Usage rights

CC BY 4.0

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/