ENTegrate – An integrated pathway for managing routine ENT conditions
McGuirk, Michelle; Warren, Christina; Amin, Mohamed; McDermott, Susan; Igoe, Aileen; Manning, Siobhan; Brady, Aoife; Kane, Janice
Nationally, over 35,000 adults are waiting for an ENT outpatient appointment, with 20%
waiting over 12 months (Fig 1). In this context outpatient resources are almost completely
consumed in seeing urgent referrals. Those with conditions deemed as “routine” frequently
wait years or even indefinitely. It is predicted that this problem will be compounded by an
increasing, ageing population, with the waiting list in the Mater Hospital ENT forecasted to
see a 50% increase in the next 4 years if no action is taken.
Over the course of this pilot project the ENT team at the Mater identified a patient cohort on
their outpatient waiting list, with a subset of conditions that are suited to a community review,
rather than a hospital outpatient clinic visit. These patients, with chronic ENT conditions, wait
extended lengths of time for assessment and treatment thus impacting their quality of life.
This pilot “ENTegrate” tested a novel pathway for patients with these selected ENT
conditions, improving their access to care, whereby they are first seen by a GP with
specialist ENT skills in the community who is supported by a hospital consultant only where
necessary.
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