Planning for Mega-EDs: How big is too big? A health planners’ perspective

Wednesday 23 September 2026 | MS Teams
5pm AEDT | 7pm NZT

Guest Speaker: Sam Chenoweth | Associate Director | Johnstaff

Australia’s emergency departments (EDs) are at a crossroads. Over recent years population growth, coupled with an ageing demographic, has resulted in significant growth in patient emergency presentations across Australia’s hospitals (despite significant investment in alternative avoidance and substitution pathways).

From a health planning perspective, jurisdictional projections suggest a continuation (and in some instances, an acceleration) of this growth into the mid-term future. Activity projections suggest that multiple EDs around the country would need to grow to accommodate over 130+ ED treatment spaces and hundreds of thousands of patient presentations per year. In spatial terms this equates to planning an ED that is larger than a football field.

This poses the questions:

• do current planning benchmarks accurately factor for patient volumes, diversity, acuity, and changing care pathways?
• should EDs of this size even be considered?
• what are the key planning and design considerations with regards to operational efficiency, workforce sustainability, safe and quality care delivery, and infrastructure design?