Tag Archives: Paramedic

CREM to run an interprofessional learning course for rural paramedics, doctors, and nurses

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The CREM team has received funds from the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine to develop an inter-professional short course focussed on the management of trauma patients in rural areas.  Although rural and metropolitan clinicians may be required to manage similar patient presentations, rural practice presents unique challenges related to resourcing and clinical exposure not often encountered by medical professionals working in larger towns and cities.  In rural areas, there is a higher likelihood of nurses, GPs or paramedics working in isolation and being required to manage critical patients with fewer resources.  With this in mind, we think there is a great advantage in bringing together clinicians from different backgrounds and providing them with the opportunity to learn from, with and about each other.  Often, the difference between a case that is managed well and one where multiple errors occur is the way in which the team interacts.  The way in which a team interacts is often dependent on the background, experience and attitude of each person in that team.  By developing a short course based on the principles of inter-professional education, our aim is provide rural clinicians with the tools to adapt to, contribute to, and lead within multi-disciplinary teams.

We aim to run a pilot course in November 2016 in order to refine the facilitation and debriefing skills of the CREM teaching staff, and to run the first course in January 2017.  The course format will include an online component and 2 day workshop utilising team training activities and patient scenarios using high-fidelity simulation.  Scenarios will include pre-hospital and in-hospital cases providing participants with the opportunity to develop patient management skills in an environment they may be unfamiliar with.

Initial destination hospital of paediatric prehospital patients in rural Victoria

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Paramedics are required to make a variety of decisions regarding their patient, not only on the patient’s condition and course of treatment but also on the destination medical facility for further care.

The objective of this study by Kate Kloot was to describe the initial destination hospital of paediatric patients transported by Ambulance Victoria paramedics within the South Western area of Victoria to determine the proportion of patients that bypassed their closest hospital.

It found that almost 20% of paediatric patients were not transported to the closest hospital,  paramedics focused on patient condition and the distance to a larger hospital when choosing destination, and uncertainty regarding 24 hour availability of resources at smaller hospitals contributed to longer transports.

Access article on publisher site

Kloot K, Salzman S, Kilpatrick S, Baker T, Brumby SA. Initial destination hospital of paediatric prehospital patients in rural Victoria. Emerg Med Australas. 2016;28(2):205-10.

Deakin researcher and paramedic hopes to improve paediatric policies

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September 2010

Warrnambool paramedic and PhD student with Deakin University’s Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine Kate Cleverley hopes a study she is conducting will lead to improved procedures for transferring paediatric patients to hospitals.

Ms Cleverley said the study could lead to new guidelines that could be used across rural Victoria for the best procedures for taking paediatric patients to the most appropriate facility.

A paramedic with 10 years experience, Ms Cleverley said there were no current guidelines to direct paramedics.

“The intention of the study is to look at paramedic decision-making and to develop protocols and guidelines to make sure paediatric patients who need to go to a higher level of facility are transported there as rapidly as possible,” she said.

“It is not only about the timely nature of the transportation but determining the most appropriate facility to take patients to depending on the level of care required.”

Ms Cleverley said that anecdotally there had been some reports over time of cases where young patients had not been taken to the most appropriate facility.

“It isn’t a common problem but I think having guidelines for paramedics to follow would make the situation less likely to arise.”

She is conducting her research across the Barwon South West region and will include paramedic focus groups, interviews and information from the ambulance service databases. However, she said the planned guidelines could apply to any rural region.

Ms Cleverley completed her Master’s thesis in paediatric weight calculations used by paramedics and was keen to continue her studies in a similar field. She started her PhD studies this year and expects it will take several years to complete. “I am studying part-time at Deakin University in Warrnambool and working at the same time. It’s still in the early stages.”

Ms Cleverley has worked from Warrnambool for the past 18 months and for the six years prior to that was based at Hamilton.

Deakin’s Centre for Rural Emergency Medicine (CREM) is a joint initiative between the Department of Human Services, Portland District Health, South West Healthcare (Warrnambool), Alcoa of Australia and the Deakin Medical School.

Deakin research into regional head trauma

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March 2010

A research project has started in south-west Victoria to find out why people who suffer major trauma head injuries recover better in city areas than in country regions.

Deakin University Warrnambool Campus PhD student Ben Fisk said there was a common belief that people injured in metropolitan areas fared better than those with comparable injuries in country areas.

“Anecdotally there seems to be different outcomes between city and country regions so our first task is to identify and analyse the existing data to see if that is the case,” Mr Fisk said.

The research will consider the total range of trauma head injuries from car crashes and home falls to farm and industrial accidents.

Mr Fisk said his research would investigate and report on possible factors which could influence the apparent imbalance.

“The most obvious would seem to be the time delay in getting injured people to treatment but there hasn’t been a study into the whole situation which will make the findings important for future planning.”

“The goal for this year is to create a picture of what is happening in Western Victoria and compare it to Melbourne.”

Mr Fisk comes from a paramedic background and has worked with the Victorian Ambulance Service in Geelong and Warrnambool for the past nine years. He hopes to use his research to learn more about pre-hospital management systems and how rural and regional people access and utilise ambulance services.

The impact of an emergency rescue helicopter in south-west Victoria will be considered in the three-year study. “There are not enough statistics yet in the south-west area to judge what impact it is having,” Mr Fisk said.

The research will also look at the processes when head trauma patients are taken to small country hospitals.

The research has been funded by the Windermere Foundation which provides special grants for the development, introduction and/or evaluation of new practices, models and interventions to improve health in country Victoria

Deakin University’s Warrnambool Campus Pro Vice-Chancellor (Rural and Regional) Professor Sue Kilpatrick and the Director of the Centre Rural Emergency Medicine Tim Baker are joint supervisors of the research.