‘Exit block’ contribution to hospital crisis highlighted by AMA

This week the AMA launched a new campaign highlighting the impact of “exit block” on our hospitals.

Exit block wasn’t a term familiar to many until this week when the AMA launched a new campaign called Hospital exit block – a symptom of a sick system and the story was carried by major media outlets across the country, including on the front page of The Australian as well as Channel 7 and SBS national networks.

AMA President Professor Steve Robson launched the report at Parliament House, Canberra on Wednesday saying exit block was a massive problem, contributing to the  logjam in the hospital system.

The AMA estimates that last financial year 285,000 patient days were lost to exit block, with a cost of up to potentially $2.1 billion a year to the health system.

Professor Robson said not having enough placements in appropriate settings was not the whole problem, with coordination and transition to sub-acute care also an issue in getting people out of hospital.

There was some positive news, however, with a new NDIS program showing early signs of helping patients leave hospital quickly and safely.

The NDIS program assigns a person to a patient to support timely discharge. This individual support, combined with increased delegation powers and regular reporting, has decreased the number of days patients are waiting for discharge into an NDIS setting. 

As well as calling for a national approach to exit block the AMA believes there is an opportunity for this type of model to expanded to include aged care and other areas where patients are waiting in hospital for discharge but can’t leave because there is nowhere for them to go.