ED Waiting Times and Theatre Cancellations – A symptom of a Hospital in logjam

Australia’s hospital systems are under immense pressure and across the country, emergency departments are struggling to keep up with demand. This is not a new problem and emergency departments are overwhelmed.

Only 55% of presentations are completed within four hours nationally – down from 69% five years ago. For Category 2 (emergency) cases, one in three patients aren’t seen within the 10-minute benchmark.

This overcrowding has downstream effects. Theatre lists are cancelled due to bed shortages, clinicians are forced to delay urgent cases and hospitals enter a perpetual Code Black. In Orange Base Hospital alone, cancer and emergency surgeries have been regularly cancelled due to capacity issues.

Celium Technologies is on a mission to break this notorious cycle with our innovative Health Tech Platform which is designed to:

Accelerate discharge readiness, ensuring bed status is known and tasks completed sooner.
Improve bed turnover, integrating Environmental Services, wards people, and clinical staff into a single prioritised workflow.
Streamline patient throughput, creating predictability in ward movements.
Reduce Emergency Department wait times and ambulance ramping by making beds available faster.
Minimise day-of-surgery cancellations by identifying bed availability early for elective planning.

By closing communication gaps and prioritising discharge-related tasks in real time, we return flow and flexibility to hospital systems. This means patients move through safely and efficiently and theatres don’t sit empty while staff scramble for beds.