Patient Cohorts > Emergency Department > Current Patients & Recent Trends

Location in SystemView: SystemView > Explore > Patient Cohorts > Emergency Department > Current Patients & Recent Trends

In this article:

What it is
Why it matters
How to use it
How it works
How it helps you
Best practices
FAQs

What it is

Current Patients & Recent Trends provides a real-time view of all current ED patients within a selected patient cohort, alongside recent 7-day presentation and activity trends. It brings together operational indicators, flow metrics, and patient-level detail to help teams understand current demand, case mix, and triage patterns. The component also supports short-term historical review, making it useful for both in-the-moment decisions and recent trend analysis.

Why it matters

See who is in your ED right now, and understand the patterns shaping today's activity.

ED teams often rely on verbal updates, manual counts, or walkthroughs to understand current department status. This component consolidates that information into a single, data-driven view, updated in real time from source system data. It reduces the need for manual information gathering and supports more timely, informed responses to emerging pressure.

Understand the current composition and volume of a patient cohort without manually reviewing individual records.
Identify where demand and acuity are concentrated across facilities, areas, and triage categories.
Recognise emerging patterns in arrival times, diagnoses, and flow outcomes from the past seven days.
Support clinical review, escalation decisions, and operational planning with a consistent, shared view of the department.

How to use it

Filter to focus your view

Use the following filters to tailor the component to your area of interest:

Facility - Narrow the view to a single facility or hospital.
Area Type - Select between All, Main, or Other mapped areas within the ED.
Area - Filter to specific areas within the ED, such as Triage, Acute, or Minors.
Patient Cohort - Select the patient cohort to apply across all tiles and charts in the component.

A Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort button is also available. Selecting this displays a detailed table listing all patients from the selected cohort who presented to the ED in the past seven days, including key clinical and arrival information.

Monitor current patients and recent cohort trends

The following tiles and charts are available in this component:

Tile / Chart	What it shows
Current Patient Cohort	A summary tile displaying key operational metrics for the selected cohort, including: Current Patients (number currently in ED), Presentations Today (total arrivals today), Max Current LoS in Hours (longest current length of stay among active patients), Inpatient Admissions Today (patients already admitted to inpatient wards), Current Patients Waiting for Inpatient Admission (patients awaiting bed allocation), and Current Patients Waiting for Subspecialty Review (patients awaiting specialist assessment).
Current Patient Cohort by Facility	A pie chart showing the distribution of current cohort patients across facilities. Helps identify where demand is concentrated and whether pressure is unevenly distributed across the network.
Current Patient Cohort by Area	A bar chart showing patient volume across ED areas such as the waiting room, Short Stay, Resus, or other mapped areas. Highlights where specific pressures are occurring, the mix of triage categories, and potential constraints within particular zones.
Patient Cohort Presentations Today by Arrival Hour and Triage	A chart showing today's presentation pattern hour by hour, grouped by triage category. Helps identify peak arrival periods and the urgency of presenting patients to support staffing and real-time workflow oversight.
Current Patient Cohort by Diagnosis Code and Triage	A chart summarising current patients by diagnosis (such as abdominal pain, respiratory complaints, or injury codes) broken down by triage category. Allows users to understand the predominant clinical themes driving today's activity and any emerging patterns.
Current Patient Cohort Details	A patient-level table listing all current ED patients in the selected cohort. Includes arrival details, presenting complaint, diagnosis, triage category, location, treating clinician, cohort tags, current length of stay, and the number of previous ED visits in the last 365 days. Particularly useful for Frequent Presenter cohorts.
Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort by Arrival Date	A line chart showing daily presentation volumes over the past week for the selected cohort. Useful for identifying upward or downward trends, variability, and atypical spikes.
Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort by Facility	A pie chart showing facility-level distribution of cohort presentations across the past week. Supports network-wide planning and highlights persistent imbalances in demand.
Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort by Admission Status	A pie chart breaking down recent presentations into Admitted and Non-Admitted categories. Reflects the clinical complexity and demand this cohort historically places on inpatient beds.
Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort by Departure Code	A bar chart displaying how patients departed from the ED over the past seven days (for example, ward admissions, discharged home, or transferred). Helps teams understand flow outcomes and downstream impacts on inpatient units.
Top 25 Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort by Suburb and Triage	A chart showing the top 25 suburbs from which recent cohort patients arrived, broken down by triage category. Useful for identifying community patterns, service coverage issues, and demographic hotspots.
Top 25 Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort by Diagnosis Code and Triage	A chart displaying the most common diagnoses for the cohort over the past week, broken down by triage category. Helps identify recurring issues, seasonal illnesses, and case-mix complexity.

How it works

Current Patients & Recent Trends draws on data from the underlying hospital source system. The current patient tiles and charts reflect the live state of the ED at the time of the most recent data refresh. The 7-day trend charts draw on presentation data from the past seven days, relative to the current date.

How it helps you

Real-time situational awareness: The component provides a consolidated, up-to-date view of who is currently in the ED, reducing reliance on verbal updates, physical walkthroughs, or manual counts.
Cohort-focused analysis: By applying a patient cohort, teams can focus on specific populations such as Frequent Presenters, Paediatrics, or other locally defined groups, making it easier to identify patterns relevant to those patients.
Triage and acuity visibility: Charts broken down by triage category make it easier to assess the urgency and clinical complexity of current and recent presentations at a glance.
Flow outcome review: Departure code and admission status breakdowns help teams understand how patients are moving through and out of the ED, and the downstream demand being placed on inpatient services.
Short-term trend review: The 7-day trend tiles allow teams to identify recent changes in demand volume, case mix, or flow patterns without needing to navigate to a separate trend component.

Best practices

How often should I use it

What to do	How often	Who typically does this	Why it helps
Review current patient cohort summary and patient-level detail	Multiple times per shift	Nurse in Charge, Flow Coordinators, ED Consultants on Shift	Maintains awareness of current cohort composition, acuity, and patients waiting for admission or specialist review
Check arrival hour and triage chart	At the start of each shift or during peak periods	Nurse in Charge, Flow Coordinators	Supports staffing decisions and early identification of peak demand periods
Review 7-day trend charts	Daily or at the start of a shift	ED Nursing Director, ED Medical Director, Business Practice Improvement Officers	Identifies emerging patterns in demand, case mix, or flow outcomes that may inform short-term planning
Monitor departure code and admission status breakdowns	Daily	Flow Coordinators, Patient Flow Lead / Manager / Coordinator	Helps assess downstream impacts on inpatient services and identify cohort-level flow trends

Pair with these components

🔗 ED > Department Now > Situation Report - Provides a broader real-time view of the whole ED, useful when reviewing the current cohort in the context of overall department status.
🔗 ED > Flow Monitor > Live Patient Flow - Supports more detailed analysis of patient movement and flow patterns alongside the cohort-level view.
🔗 ED > NEAT / ELOS / PET Analysis - Use alongside recent trend data to understand how this cohort's presentations may be influencing access target performance.
🔗 Beds > Inpatient Flow Monitor > Hospital Overview - Useful for understanding inpatient bed availability when patients in the cohort are waiting for admission.

Use the Patient Cohort filter to narrow the view to the specific group most relevant to your role or current planning need.

Tips for success

Use the Previous 7 Days Patient Cohort button to access the full patient-level table for recent cohort presentations. This is particularly useful when reviewing Frequent Presenter cohorts or preparing for operational or clinical discussions.
The Max Current LoS (Hours) metric in the Current Patient Cohort tile reflects the single longest current stay. Consider reviewing the Current Patient Cohort Details table to identify which patients are contributing to extended lengths of stay.
Suburb and diagnosis breakdowns in the 7-day charts are limited to the top 25 entries. If a specific suburb or diagnosis is not visible, it may fall outside the top 25 for the selected cohort and time period.
Data in this component reflects the most recent refresh from the source system. Check the data timestamp at the top of the component if real-time accuracy is critical to a decision.

Want a detailed breakdown?

If you’d like a more detailed look at every filter, chart, and tile in this component, you can download the Patient Cohorts ED - Current Patients & Recent Trends guide below.

📎 Download: Patient Cohorts > ED > Current Patients & Recent Trends Guide

❓FAQs

Q: Why are some area or facility breakdowns showing as "Not Defined" or "Not Mapped"?
A: Patients assigned to areas or facilities that have not been mapped in SystemView's configuration will appear under "Not Defined" or similar labels. This reflects a configuration or source system mapping issue rather than a data error. Contact your SystemView administrator if you believe an area or facility should be mapped.

Q: The Previous 7 Days charts show a different date range than expected. Why?
A: The 7-day window is calculated relative to the current date at the time of the data refresh. If the data was last refreshed at a specific point in time, the range will reflect the seven days prior to that refresh. Check the data timestamp at the top of the component to confirm the currency of the displayed data.