Murphy ‘gobsmacked’ with data gathering practices in hospitals

by Páraic McMahon paraic@clareecho.ie

A WEST Clare representative has admitted he is “gobsmacked” that the HSE do not have a geographic breakdown on where in the Mid-West patients are admitted to University Hospital Limerick (UHL) from.

Multiple pieces of data surrounding admissions to UHL over the past year were requested by Cllr Cillian Murphy (FF) at a meeting of the HSE Regional Health Forum West.

UHL is, if we don’t cover the wider systematic issue I don’t think we can begin to address the problem”.

Failure to compile the data on where the patients are coming from and if they could be treated in Ennis is “staggering,” he remarked. “Extending opening hours of the local injury units might be a start but of course it’s useless without understanding the other two parts of the question, if we don’t understand how they can be treated in another pathway it’s useless”.

decades running a business as giving an understanding on the last-minute calls that come about with changing staff, “The process for filling immediate vacancies seems robust”.

Comments regarding ‘the golden hour’ made CEO of UL Hospitals Group, Colette Cowan earlier in the meeting were picked up on by the Kilkee representative. “Huge swathes of West Clare are outside of the golden hour and that is getting to the service not to mention getting into the service. When I mention the golden hour to people in West and North Clare they just laugh, it is not pertinent to them”.

Absence of many basic forms of such detail prompted UL Hospitals Chief Executive Colette Cowan to state, “I can categorically say the HSE does not hide data”.

Cllr Murphy sought a geographic breakdown of the presentations to the emergency department in UHL last year, how much of these occurred within 8pm to 8am daily and how many of the patients could have been treated in a MAU or LIU.

For the first seven months of 2022, a breakdown of the numbers attending the ED through the National Ambulance Service showed that of the 4,122 attendees, 45 were Echo priority and more than 1,800 were Delta priority leaving an approximate 2,270 as lower priority calls. Murphy also asked for information on how many of the 2,270 could have been treated in either Ennis’ MAU or LIU.

Ms Cowan said, “It is not possible to determine if a case assessed in the ED could have been treated in an MAU or Injury Unit as this information is not recorded in such a way that a report can be easily generated. This would require the manual review of each individual presentation, this is also the situation for the county based data requested”.

Absence of the requested data was frustrating, Cllr Murphy said. “At the core is understanding what the issue with overcrowding in

An IT consultant who the Kilkee representative discussed the matter with said they were “gobsmacked” the data was not available.

He added, “If UHL and the HSE want to solve the problem in the ED, this is at the most basic data gathering. IT experts are saying this isn’t anywhere not complicated. The best time to start something was 20 years ago, the second best time is today”.

Speaking in response, Ms Cowan stated, “we collect lots of data”. Over 50 per cent of the attendances at UHL are walk-ins and self-referrals, she said.

“Emergency calls may not have been seen by the physician, the paramedic or doctors so with all due respect they have to see them they can’t just send them to the local injury unit”. Risk mitigation means the “right patients” must be sent to Ennis and Nenagh, the CEO added. “If you want to find data fields you want to look at we’re happy to do that. I can categorically say HSE does not hide data,” she said.

JJ McGowan, Chief Ambulance Officer with HSE West said they cannot gather the data on a mass basis but could complete a sample over a one or two day period. “To do that on a mass basis would ensure we trawl through all patient records and we don’t have the viability to do that”.