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Our Vision

Contribute to an effective and sustainable rural and remote health system

Rural and Remote Nursing Tele-grand Rounds

Preliminary work has been undertaken to implement a trial of Telehealth Grand Rounds for nurses in small rural and remote facilities, beginning with a trial in NCAHS and commencing June 2009. This will see up to 8 sites linking regularly by videoconference for case presentation and discussion of interesting or challenging patient journeys, referral patterns to regional referral centres, retrieval team episodes and/ or discharge to community support services. What worked, what could have been done differently, what was the patient outcome? The aim is to further enhance critical thinking and decision making skills for staff that often have to triage in the absence of a medical officer, and to foster a mentoring network amongst nurses from smaller rural and remote sites in NCAHS.

An Implementation Toolkit has been developed which, when tested, will be distributed to other AHS’s for implementation across rural and remote NSW. The toolkit consists of:

Participants Kit

Presenters Kit

Session Presentation Template

VC Etiquette

Rotational Roster Template

Evaluation Form

Topics

A survey has been distributed to all smaller sites in NCAHS to identify level of interest, suggested topics and frequency of presentations. Ten sites are interested. The Nurse Practitioner Network and Clinical Nurse Consultant Directorate have been consulted and are happy to be involved as rural and remote Tele Grand Rounds networking is seen as core business. These clinical leaders have been identified as clinical champions to assist in developing the monthly rotational calendar, to chair the sessions on a rotational basis and to keep sessions structured, focussed and running to time. The NCAHS Area Telehealth Manager will conduct an inservice for participating clinical champions on the role of the videoconference Chairperson in May 2009 and a spokesperson will be nominated from each site.

Tele Grand Rounds will be trialled in NCAHS where the use of Tele Health is cost neutral within the area and the Implementation Toolkit will then be offered to the other rural AHS’s to establish for their rural and remote nurses from smaller sites. There has been much interest generated, especially from GWAHS and HNEAHS who have already identified Clinical Champions to who are keen to be involved.

IRCST will cover Telehealth ISDN dial up linkage costs for rural AHS’s who do not have the capacity for cost neutral telehealth linkage within their areas.