For two decades, the demand for emergency department services in Australia has outpaced population growth and wait times have increased. In 2022-2023 more than 8.8 million emergency department presentations occurred nationwide.
While demand is a contributing factor, EDs are currently being impacted by various factors across the entire health system.
The Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) is a non-profit organisation funding innovative Australian research that improves the way people are cared for in a medical emergency. The aim of the research is to deliver better and more effective health services to save lives and money.
Professor Hugh Grantham, Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) Chair on the urgent challenges in emergency departments states, “The issue of system-wide delays from triage to admission to treatment and discharge is one of the Australian healthcare system’s most challenging problems and it severely impacts vulnerable patient groups, including aged care and mental health patients.”
In February 2024, the Emergency Medicine Foundation (EMF) launched a $1.3 million fund for new research grants dedicated to addressing the pressing issues in emergency care to improve patient outcomes in Australia.
These projects will include innovative ways to improve pain management in children, treating diabetic patients, and optimising treatment for patients who call an ambulance for nausea or vomiting.
Australian Health Journal spoke with Dr Kim Hansen, Emergency Medicine Foundation Board Director, author & presenter of a broad range of topics including ED crowding, incident reporting, cognitive bias and gender equity.
Since launching in 2007, EMF has fostered significant growth in research and innovation in emergency, prehospital and retrieval medicine across Queensland. These EMF-funded research projects have proved both effective and wide-reaching, with a recent mental health study projected to save the Australian health system $30 million.
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Achieving impact in Occupational Therapy
Associate Professor Emma George is a leader in occupational therapy, fascinated by the role and importance of occupation as a right for health and well-being. Her research projects all explore the way we address health inequities among marginalised people and communities with a commitment to social and occupational justice.
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Interventional radiologists offer alternative to hysterectomy
In Australia in the last five years, an estimated 6066 women per year have undergone hysterectomies to treat fibroid-related diseases, while just 145 women each year have undergone a uterine artery embolisation, or UAE.
The procedure can effectively treat the majority of bleeding uterine fibroids. Each year, thousands of Australian women undergo invasive and life-altering hysterectomies to treat debilitating pain and blood loss caused by uterine fibroids. But there’s another option: a minimally invasive, pin-hole procedure that treats the symptoms, yet leaves the uterus intact.
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Analogy of the system, rather than the ED front door
“The problem of blockages shows up in ambulance ramping and long wait times, but this is a complex issue requiring whole-of-health system solutions,” according to Professor Hugh Grantham, Chair of Emergency Medicine Foundation in an interview with Australian Health Journal.
