Source: New Zealand Government
Patients at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital are getting home faster, with better planning freeing up more than 1,500 bed nights over the past year, Health Minister Simeon Brown says.
“When a patient is well enough to leave, every extra night they spend on a ward is a night away from their family and their own routine. It also means that bed is not available for someone else who needs it,” Mr Brown says.
A bed night is a single night in a single hospital bed, so each one freed up is a night that bed was available for another patient.
“Staff at Hawke’s Bay have reduced the number of patients left waiting in hospital after they are medically cleared to go home by 57 per cent, freeing up 1,515 bed nights over the year.
“A year ago, an average of 21 patients a day were medically cleared to leave hospital but unable to be discharged. It is now down to nine patients a day.
“That is a significant result, and it reflects the practical, efficient improvements being made across the health system every day.
“It also matters for our emergency departments, where our target is for 95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged, or transferred within six hours.
“A patient who needs to be admitted from ED cannot go up to a ward until a bed is free. If that bed is still taken by someone who is well enough to go home, the patient waits in the ED instead, and everyone who comes in behind them waits longer too.
“Initiatives like this keep patients moving through the hospital, and that is what takes the pressure off our emergency departments.”
The improvement is the work of a specialist team, including Clinical Nurse Specialists, a Health Care Assistant, and the geriatrics team. They work alongside ward staff, doctors, Allied Health staff, patients and their families, GPs, care providers, and community services.
Rather than waiting until a patient is ready to leave, the team identifies those likely to need extra support, usually older people or those living with frailty, and starts planning their discharge on the day they arrive.
A key part of that work is completing Comprehensive Geriatric Assessments on the day a patient arrives or the day after. The assessments cover a patient’s health, independence, and how they were managing at home, so the support they will need can be arranged from the outset.
The team works across the Acute Assessment Unit, general medical wards, and surgical areas. Closer relationships with local aged residential care facilities have also made transfers out of hospital smoother.
“The former approach was to sort out what a patient needed once they were ready to leave. Now, the team starts planning it on day one,” Mr Brown says.
“That means families are brought into the conversation earlier, GPs and care providers know what is coming, and the hospital and aged residential care facilities can work through a patient’s next steps together.
“Good planning at the start of a patient’s stay means fewer delays at the end of it, and that keeps beds available across the hospital for the patients who need them.
“I want to acknowledge the frontline teams behind this initiative. It is an example of putting patients first and finding better ways of working, because getting patients home safely and sooner is what good care looks like.”
Original source: https://nz.mil-osi.com/2026/09/14/better-planning-frees-1500-bed-nights-in-hawkes-bay/