Emergency department demographics at a small Australian rural hospital

The emergency departments (EDs) of Australian rural hospitals are under stress due to a lack of specialty staff and government funding, and the need to serve large geographic catchment areas. Knowledge of the demographics and other details of patients presenting to these EDs provides a way for rural hospitals to tailor their emergency services; however, there are few published studies that supply this information.

This study aimed to establish patient numbers and demographics for those presenting to the ED of Cobram District Hospital (CDH), a rural hospital in the Australian state of Victoria. Daily and seasonal variations were also assessed, as was the catchment area and triage status of individual patients.

Multiple datasets were collected retrospectively from electronic and handwritten databases for 3 financial years (July 2005 to June 2008) for presentations to CDH ED. The data were compared and analysed.

Approximately 3000 patients presented to CDH ED each year. The catchment of the ED was much greater than expected, with a significant portion of patients (14%) attending from the neighbouring state of New South Wales. Patient numbers increase by 50% during the summer, compared with the winter months. Regarding presentation time, 69% of presentations occur between 12.00 and 24.00, with 3 distinct time periods in each day when most presentations occur. Only 2% of all emergency patients are Australasian Triage Scale categories 1 and 2, while 73% are categories 4 and 5.

Cobram District Hospital is a small rural hospital with 3000 patients presenting to the ED each year, representing a larger than expected catchment area. An ageing demographic among patients, seasonal variations in numbers and a large proportion of after-hours presentations should be of concern to administrators and policy-makers in planning future resource allocation for this and other similar EDs.