Redcliffe’s SWIFT solution gets patients home sooner
The SWIFT team at Redcliffe includes a senior medical officer, medical resident, discharge nursing coordinator and a pharmacist.
No one wants to be in hospital for longer than they need to be. At Redcliffe Hospital, a multidisciplinary clinical team is on duty each weekend to make sure patients aren’t left waiting until Monday morning to go home.
Redcliffe Hospital’s Safe Weekend Inpatient Flow and Transfer Team (SWIFT) was established in 2025, but patients and clinical teams at the hospital know it better as the Weekend Discharge Task Force.
Nathanael Chua is a Senior Clinical Pharmacist at Redcliffe Hospital with the multidisciplinary SWIFT team, which includes a senior medical officer, medical resident, discharge nursing coordinator and a pharmacist.
“Patients are usually keen to get back home and back to their lives,” Nathanael said.
“A long hospital stay can not only be inconvenient for patients, but if they end up being in hospital for longer than they need to be, it can actually risk delaying their recovery.”
Nathanael says it’s a common problem for many hospitals— a patient not quite ready for discharge on Friday stuck there until Monday to be discharged— when maybe they could have gone home on Saturday or Sunday.
“The SWIFT model seeks to address that problem. It’s is another way Metro North Health and Redcliffe Hospital are helping patients to get back home sooner and onto the next stage of their care and treatment,” he said.
“Having the SWIFT team on duty means we continue with medical discharges on the weekend, just like any other day.
“The SWIFT team relies on criteria and plans set by the patient’s treating doctors and clinical team on Friday. It’s the patient’s treating team that puts those plans in place, and if the patient is ready for discharge on the weekend, that plan gets put into action.”
The SWIFT team sees on average 10 to 15 patients on both Saturdays and Sundays, with discharge rates varying from 50% to as high as 90%.
Nursing Director for the Medical Service Line at Redcliffe Hospital Nikia Goldsmith says the SWIFT model isn’t just beneficial to the patient who gets to go home on a Saturday or a Sunday.
“By helping patients to get home over the weekend means the hospital medical wards are set for a better start to the week on Monday – with more beds available for patients who need them,” she said.