incident we have been viewing our resources on
the Gold Coast as a whole. Obviously, the major
response will come from the public hospitals
unless an incident disables them in some way, but
we have been exploring how the Private sector can
support and assist if the need arises.
This may be through accessing our operating
theatre capacity. It may be by delivering the Gold
Coast’s babies for a period of time. It may be by
helping manage the “run of the mill” health care
needs of the coast whilst the public hospitals
concentrate on critically injured patients.
This in itself represents a positive step for the
Gold Coast’s health service in general. Australia
enjoys arguably the best health service in the
world and with the mixed public/private system
on the Gold Coast our community enjoys an
extremely high quality of health care. Should the
need arise we feel confident that we could mount
a local response for our community that would
define us as a healthcare region.
Through the duration of the Commonwealth
Games and afterwards, patients will still expect
to be seen in a timely fashion and at Pindara we
aim to meet expectations by seeing people as
quickly as possible.
We have developed an active “waiting clock”
that is displayed in the ED waiting room and is
also viewable on the internet so that patients can
get an idea about how long they might have to wait
to see a doctor. Potential patients can therefore
look up our waiting time prior to deciding which
Emergency Department to present to.
In the theme of high performance and in an
effort to make things clearer for our patients we
have recently revised our Emergency Department
fee structure making it more streamlined and
easier to understand by creating one fixed rate.
Feedback we received showed that privately
insured patients who would choose to utilise
public Emergency Departments did so because
they were often unsure about costs they would
incur in a private ED, as well as how long they
might have to wait to be seen.
Our new fee structure and payment process
offers patients more clarity as to the costs they
will incur, when and how payment is made and
the Medicare rebates they can expect.
The decision for patients is now simply whether
or not they would prefer to avoid the congestion
and possible lengthy waiting times they may
experience elsewhere - a decision our waiting
clock can help with.
pindaramagazine.com.au Pindara Magazine | 19