Hospital Name: Eastern Health Key contact for this project ( name & details): Anita Wilton

1. The Health Roundtable New Zealand Triage Protocols Informing Prioritisation of Referrals and Workload Management by Allied Health Staff 3 Using Benchmarking Data to Drive Improvement Hospital Name: Eastern Health Key contact for this project ( name & details): Anita Wilton Anita.Wilton@easternhealth.org.au

2. Key Problem • We couldn’t tell anybody what we were doing • No consistent data was available on what Allied Health did – each discipline/site/program reported on whatever they wanted • Nothing other than individual clinical judgement defined an appropriate Allied Health response to a referral

3. Key Strategies / Ideas Implemented • 2007 Implementation of statistics collection utilising HMS for all EH Allied Health staff • 2007/08 -Development of EH Allied Health Triage protocol • 2008/09 – Development of standard suite of reports • 2009 – refining of reports

4. Performance targets for each Triage Category

5. Timelines & Resources & 2007/08 – Allied Health Triage Protocol developed • Response time to each category of referral established • Performance targets established • Each discipline defined what constituteed each category Resources utilized • Professional leadership groups • HMS coordinator (1 EFT) • Decision Support reports

6. Key Outcomes Achieved • Reports are published – available for managers and staff to review performance • Managers report on number of referrals and urgency • Manager report on departmental performance • Ongoing staff training and defining of business rules for data entry

7. Comparisons between sites

8. Allied Health reporting Data reported monthly • Number of referrals in each category • Reasons for not achieving performance targets

9. Lessons Learnt • Spotlight on how Allied Health meet prioritisation targets for Cat 1 when there is limited Out of Hours service • Tighter establishment of business rules for data entry at the beginning • Teach managers how to use the data