Emergency Room Waits Eliminated?

Emergency’s happen, and when they do, they are very stressful. If you are away from home and an emergency occurs, you want to know where to find the nearest emergency room, where it is, and how long you will be there. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a mobile application that gave you all of this information? That is exactly what a newly elected government of New South Whales (NSW) thought, and enlisted the help of Deloitte to make this application possible.

NSW’s Department of Health had already created a series of web services that collected information from emergency department management systems on a continuous basis. Deloitte worked with the Department of Health to use this information to create a mobile website available to iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices.

According to Deloitte, the application provides citizens:

• Details of the closest emergency department including location, number of people waiting to be treated, the number of beds in the emergency department, and an estimate of the likely waiting time.
• A map with overlay of the suggested route and detailed directions from the current location to the hospital.
• An estimate of the driving time to the emergency department, which was considered essential as driving times can vary significantly, especially in Sydney where travel may involve moving around or across the harbour.

The mobile website provides easy access to critical information required in responding to an emergency situation. Patients can now find the best place to go when dealing with an emergency, know how to get there, and be aware of the time they will wait upon arrival. This gives the patients the ability to make the best decision for them while also spreading the load of work accross NSW hospitals.

The mobile site can be found here. Thanks to Deloitte for helping create such a valuable application!

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