Emergency medicine Australasia : EMA
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2022
Recent amendments to Queensland legislation make mental health presentations to hospital emergency departments more difficult to scrutinise.
The Queensland Police Service (QPS) and Queensland Ambulance Service may detain and transport persons experiencing major disturbances in their mental capacity to an ED for urgent care. Queensland's new mental health legislation (March 2017) makes this legal intervention difficult to scrutinise. For a large non-metropolitan region, QPS records for emergency examination orders (EEOs) and emergency examination authorities (EEAs) were compared with annual reports of Queensland's Director of Mental Health and Chief Psychiatrist. ⋯ Annual reports declared 1803 EEAs in total for this period, without distinguishing those registered by QPS from the Queensland Ambulance Service. Past year proportions of EEOs, however, indicate perhaps ~1100 originated with QPS (84% fewer). Information crucial for considered emergency mental healthcare responses for thousands of people is no longer readily available.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2022
Syndromic surveillance to detect disease outbreaks using time between ED presentations.
Early warning of disease outbreaks is paramount for health jurisdictions. The objective of the present study was to develop syndromic surveillance monitoring plans from routinely collected ED data with application to detecting disease outbreaks. ⋯ Outbreak detection models demonstrate the ability to quickly flag an outbreak based on clinician-assigned ED diagnoses. An implemented syndromic surveillance approach can pick up geographic outbreaks quickly so they can be contained. Such capability can help with surveillance related to the current COVID-19 pandemic and potential future pandemics.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2022
Telehealth training: Interprofessional mixed reality simulation in a retrieval service setting.
The use of Telehealth is well established in Australian retrieval service settings to aid assessment and management of patients requiring aeromedical transportation and to provide support to clinicians at remote facilities. Telehealth ensures prompt advice and treatment for critically ill and injured patients and can facilitate a resuscitation until the retrieval team arrives. ⋯ We share the experiences of the South Australia Ambulance Service MedSTAR Emergency Medical Retrieval Service preparing an education programme focussed on the psychometric skills in Telehealth. Our programme realistically simulates Telehealth and coordination systems in use across South Australia, provides in-depth hands-on practice for medical and nursing staff that incorporates teamwork, communication, technical and critical thinking skills and culminates with a mixed-reality simulation scenario and formal debrief.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2022
Algorithm for the use of the Guardianship Act, the Mental Health Act and the Public Health Act in emergency departments in New South Wales.
To address frequently asked questions regarding the use of the Guardianship Act, the Mental Health Act and the Public Health Act within New South Wales EDs and present an algorithm to guide the use of this legislation. ⋯ This paper offers an algorithm that can be easily followed for use in EDs across New South Wales.
-
Emerg Med Australas · Feb 2022
'Dalarinji': A flexible clinic, belonging to and for the Aboriginal people, in an Australian emergency department.
Equity and access to high-quality healthcare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Aboriginal) people has remained refractory for complex and multifactorial reasons, and there are sound ethical arguments for addressing this urgently. In EDs all patients who 'leave at own risk' (LAOR) or 'do not wait to be seen' (DNW) are at increased risk of readmission, morbidity or death. This also incurs additional resource costs to the health system. Aboriginal patients have high rates of DNW and LAOR. The Flexiclinic model of care was co-designed to better support the needs of Aboriginal patients in the ED and to reduce the rates of DNW and LAOR. ⋯ The Flexiclinic approach has significantly improved medical care at SVHED for Aboriginal patients. It has been well received by both staff and patients and has had no adverse effects on delivery of services to other patient groups.