Mrs Angela Duggan1, Ms Jessica Talimalie1
1Retrieval Services Queensland, Kedron, Australia
Aeromedical coordination starts form the first engagement of a request for assistance. For Retrieval Services Queensland (RSQ) that can start with a request of “can you dial in on telehealth, we need critical care advice”. The introduction of telehealth has been a positive step in increasing specialist advice to rural and remote clinicians to support their critically unwell patients in under resourced facilities disadvantaged by the tyranny of distance. Uniquely placed, RSQ clinicians have the telehealth capability to dial into any health facility in Queensland and provide critical care support and advice through telehealth any time day or night. This in turn helps to ensure the highest standards of care can be initiated prior to the retrieval team’s arrival, facilitate a faster retrieval and get the patient to definitive care quicker.
Previously there hasn’t been a safe environment for RSQ clinicians to simulate this aeromedical critical care service. With the opening of a dedicated RSQ Education Centre (REC), RSQ clinicians now have a safe place to practice their Advanced Life Support Team Leader skills via telehealth. This simple inclusion provides a high-fidelity environment for clinicians to refine their remote decision-making, clinical reasoning skills and facilitation of telehealth service delivery and gives the same clinicians the exposure of the communication challenges faced in the resuscitation room with the added layer of technology.
Facilitation of clinical care through telehealth is an under researched topic for an emerging area of health care. Incorporating this into annual training and increasing clinician’s exposure to the technology that supports rural and remote facilities is the first step of a series of innovative educational changes within Retrieval Service Queensland current profile. Improving “critical care in the air” one simulation at a time.
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