Operational Development

The current Accident and Emergency Center is one building functioning operationally as two separate departments: trauma/surgery and internal medicine.  The structure is primarily tailored to the acute care of traumatic injuries and surgical emergencies but is used concurrently as a center for medical emergency diagnosis and care.  To establish an Emergency department we first needed to gain some understanding of flow and function. This past summer, shortly after the Accident and Emergency Center opened, we conducted an Operations Needs Assessment.  Triage bottlenecks and suboptimal use of space are the primary targets of initial operations interventions.  Introduction of the South African Triage Score in July 2009 provided a structured, validated tool for sorting patients and collecting objective data on patients presenting to the Accident and Emergency Center.

Recent developments:

• On February 1, 2010, the Accident and Emergency Center transitioned to a functional Emergency Department