Changing the model: Ashburton’s experience

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Withington S, Kiuru S, Wilson S, Lyons J, Feberwee A, Lander J. Transition of the medical model of care at Ashburton hospital over 10 years: the perspective of rural generalists. Transition. New Zealand Medical Journal. 2020 Apr 3;133(1512).

NZMJ – will become open access after 6 months

Finally something non-COVID. A great viewpoint article in the previous edition of the NZMJ from the team in Ashburton. In this article they describe their transition to a rural hospital generalist model with resident medical officers (house officers and registrars), away from a specialist model. They report their drivers for change and the inevitable challenges.

Interestingly, even with a reduction in the number of beds, reduction in total FTE and double the  number of annual presentations (+106% cf. 2008), there were similar number of admissions and bed days. Transfers increased but not nearly by the same amount as the number of presentations (12% increase in transfers versus 106% increase in presentations [152% increase in Triage 1 & 2 presentations])

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