Dr Eleanor Macdougall1
1SAAS MedSTAR, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract:
SAAS MedSTAR sits in a unique position. A publicly funded organisation, embedded in an ambulance service, coordinating all (non-Commonwealth) retrievals and aeromedical transfers of patients within South Australia and responding with Paediatric/Neonatal and General Teams to provide critical care to patients of all ages, whatever their presentation by road, rotary and fixed wing.
At the heart of this is coordination lead by Medical Retrieval Consultants and Nurse Retrieval Coordinators who provide advice and support to regional clinicians where required and oversee the retrieval response with our SA Ambulance colleagues. Taking up to 900 calls a day, organising as many as 50 patient transfers and multiple retrievals how does a system keep going as the workload escalates within a healthcare service under stress?
What do we do? What else could we do? How can we support our regional and rural clinicians better? We have undertaken a review of processes and workflows to find efficiencies and improve our service to the community. I will explore the advantages and challenges of our work and a view to the future.
Biographies:
Biographies to come