Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt announced a $24 million research program to explore better ways to reduce wait times for Australians presenting to EDs.

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Australian Nursing and Midwifery Association Tasmania branch secretary Emily Shepherd said medical staff are already aware of what needs to happen.

"The challenges for EDs are already well understood and the funding that is being attributed to conduct this research would be better spent investing in ED avoidance strategies," she said.

The University of Tasmania will take on one of 10 research projects looking into improving emergency care - a $2.9 million project researching ways to implement clinical pathways for acute care in Tasmania.

Australian Medical Association Tasmania president Dr John Saul said the key problems "are really simple."

"Access blocking and lack of staff are the two main pressures we see," he said.

"We already know our hospitals and EDs are understaffed, we don't need research to tell us that."

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Dr Saul said more people are heading to the ED rather than their GPs as Medicare struggles.

"We've got a federal government falling down in their support for primary care which is mainly GPs and as a result, we see not enough GP services available.

"The cost of see a GP is climbing and as a result, people are proceeding to EDs rather than to primary care."

Ms Shepherd said strategies include alternate community based models of care, better Medicare funding for nurse practitioners and to increase Medicare rebates for primary care.

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As well as investing in preventative strategies to prevent the long term acute care needs of those with complex chronic health condition.

Ms Shepherd said there are numerous pressures on EDs, one which has been an issues of "many years."

"The most obvious and well documented one is access block," she said.

"This means that often those individuals who are presenting to the ED are waiting for much longer than the best practice timeframe for care, whether in the waiting room or ramped on an ambulance trolley, simply because ED's can not move those admitted patients from the ED into a ward or unit bed in a timely way, or there just isn't enough ward beds to meet the demand at any given time."

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Dr Saul said the medical system will continue to struggle.

"The reality is we need more staff now."

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