The formation of a team of infectious disease (ID) physicians working in remote and rural areas or with limited ID access, tasked with providing out of hours ID and COVID-19 advice to seven Hospital and Health Services (HHSs).
Infectious Disease COVID-19 Hotline
Initiative Type
Service Improvement
Status
Deliver
Added
Last updated
Summary
Key dates
Jan 2020
Dec 2020
Implementation sites
Torres and Cape HHS, North West HHS, Central West HHS, South West HHS, Mackay HHS, Darling Downs HHS, West Moreton HHS
Aim
To meet the need for specialist ID advice including specific COVID-19 advice, with the onset of the pandemic.
Benefits
- this after-hours team has allowed ID physicians that had very limited on-call options, to be on-call less frequently (potentially reducing burnout)
- after-hours on-call advice/testing management during the COVID-19 outbreak in Ipswich in early 2021
- supportive team quick to disseminate or flag things of interest to the team.
- insight into seven HHSs.
Background
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that rural hospitals did not have the same access to ID specialists when compared to metropolitan hospitals.
Solutions Implemented
Formation of an out of hours ID hotline service for seven rural HHSs staffed by seven ID physicians on a rotating roster.
Evaluation and Results
- The hotline service is ongoing.
- Data collection has been amended to include data on rapid test approvals.
- Opportunities for further integration of ID/antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) advice with patient clinical information systems is being evaluated.
Lessons Learnt
Formal data collection from the outset (commenced early May 2020, robust data collected from September 2020)
