{"id":9191,"date":"2026-05-06T11:16:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T01:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/uncategorized\/swift-team-gets-patients-home-sooner"},"modified":"2026-05-06T14:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T04:16:30","slug":"swift-team-gets-patients-home-sooner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/news\/swift-team-gets-patients-home-sooner","title":{"rendered":"Redcliffe&#8217;s SWIFT solution gets patients home sooner"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 fusion-flex-container nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"--awb-border-radius-top-left:0px;--awb-border-radius-top-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-right:0px;--awb-border-radius-bottom-left:0px;--awb-flex-wrap:wrap;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row fusion-flex-align-items-stretch fusion-flex-content-wrap\" style=\"max-width:89.44rem;margin-left: calc(-4% \/ 2 );margin-right: calc(-4% \/ 2 );\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-flex-column fusion-flex-align-self-stretch\" style=\"--awb-padding-top:20px;--awb-bg-size:cover;--awb-width-large:100%;--awb-margin-top-large:0px;--awb-spacing-right-large:1.92%;--awb-margin-bottom-large:20px;--awb-spacing-left-large:1.92%;--awb-width-medium:100%;--awb-order-medium:0;--awb-spacing-right-medium:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-medium:1.92%;--awb-width-small:100%;--awb-order-small:0;--awb-spacing-right-small:1.92%;--awb-spacing-left-small:1.92%;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-column-has-shadow fusion-flex-justify-content-flex-start fusion-content-layout-column\"><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><h1>Redcliffe&#8217;s SWIFT solution gets patients home sooner<\/h1>\n<div id=\"attachment_9192\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9192\" class=\"wp-image-9192 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/05\/swift-team.jpg\" alt=\"The SWIFT team at Redcliffe includes a senior medical officer, medical resident, discharge nursing coordinator and a pharmacist.\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 600px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 600\/400;\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9192\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The SWIFT team at Redcliffe includes a senior medical officer, medical resident, discharge nursing coordinator and a pharmacist.<\/p><\/div>\n<h4>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\u2019t left waiting until Monday morning to go home.<\/h4>\n<p>Redcliffe Hospital\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPatients are usually keen to get back home and back to their lives,\u201d Nathanael said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nathanael says it\u2019s a common problem for many hospitals\u2014 a patient not quite ready for discharge on Friday stuck there until Monday to be discharged\u2014 when maybe they could have gone home on Saturday or Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe SWIFT model seeks to address that problem. It\u2019s 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving the SWIFT team on duty means we continue with medical discharges on the weekend, just like any other day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe SWIFT team relies on criteria and plans set by the patient\u2019s treating doctors and clinical team on Friday. It\u2019s the patient\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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%.<\/p>\n<p>Nursing Director for the Medical Service Line at Redcliffe Hospital Nikia Goldsmith says the SWIFT model isn\u2019t just beneficial to the patient who gets to go home on a Saturday or a Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy helping patients to get home over the weekend means the hospital medical wards are set for a better start to the week on Monday \u2013 with more beds available for patients who need them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Redcliffe Hospital, a multidisciplinary clinical team is on duty each weekend, making sure patients don&#8217;t need to wait until Monday to go home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":9192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1193],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-redcliffe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9191"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9195,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9191\/revisions\/9195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/redcliffe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}