Dr Clinton Gibbs1, Dr Jahnavi Burnham1, Dr Shahera Banu1
1Retrieval Services Queensland, Queensland Health, , Australia
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly altered usual societal operations as well as significantly impacting the broad health system operations from prehospital care, through emergency, intensive and acute care and beyond to subacute care, rehabilitation, and outpatient services. In Queensland, there have been marked ebbs and flows of the impact of the pandemic since early 2020 through to the present time. Furthermore, it is anticipated that there will be future disruptions to routine service delivery as new strains or as new pandemics emerge and in the interest of proactive preparedness, it is important to identify the challenges faced by the state’s aeromedical retrieval network.
To date, there has been no evaluation to quantify and understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Queensland’s aeromedical retrieval network operation, performance, and outcomes. With the large decentralisation and extensive size of the State, Queenslanders rely on aeromedical services to move patients from referral sites to definitive care, as well as assisting in their repatriation. However, with rapid changes in clinical care protocols and restrictions across the health system as the COVID-19 pandemic developed, patient retrieval coordination and service delivery, workforce preparedness and capacity, and patient outcomes were impacted.
The study explores the trends of Queensland’s aeromedical retrieval service network usage during the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison to pre-pandemic period, in terms of changes to patient characteristics, patient flows, and outcomes including the burden of COVID-19 cases and PPE usage. This project also involves a Delphi-style study to explore the experiences and opinions of Queensland aeromedical retrieval network’s frontline staff to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted their ability to perform daily and pandemic related business. Through this work, a contemporary comprehensive evidence-based framework will be established to review, monitor, forecast, and plan retrieval services at the system, workforce, and patient level for future events.
Biographies:
Dr Gibbs is a Senior Staff Specialist in Emergency Medicine at Townsville University Hospital, and Clinical Director of Research and Evaluation with Retrieval Services Queensland (RSQ). As RSQ’s Clinical Director and experienced Medical Coordinator, Dr Gibbs is highly experienced in the provision of emergency care and in assessment, triaging and logistics relating to the aeromedical retrieval of trauma patients. Dr Gibbs is an avid researcher, reflected by their previous and ongoing involvement in research in prehospital medicine. Dr Gibbs is currently involved in several trauma-related projects, collaborating with various organisations, to optimise trauma care in Queensland’s prehospital environment.