When Gladstone Hospital Emergency Physician Dr Jacob O’Gorman submitted his Standardised and Safe Intubation Package (SSIP) to the PROV-ED Project, he had no idea of just how far this initiative would go.
Lo and behold, twelve months later, the package originally developed to standardise the intubation process in Gladstone emergency department has made its way not only right across Queensland, but past the West Australian coast to Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands!
Derived from practices used in the retrieval setting, SSIP is designed to reduce the cognitive load on lead clinicians by increasing teamwork and communication during the relatively high-risk procedure of patient intubation. ‘To ensure that SSIP was a resource that could be used at any Emergency Department in Queensland, it was essential that we sought input from medical and nursing staff from tertiary to remote hospitals. SSIP has also been modified for use in paediatric patients,’ Jacob said.
‘We engaged Children’s Health [Queensland] stakeholders to make sure we referenced the relevant paediatric resources such as the CREDD book which was also released this year,’ Jacob said. ‘SSIP has full endorsement from both Retrieval Services Queensland (RSQ) and Children’s Health Queensland Retrieval Services (CHQRS), which further adds to its value as a standardised approach.’
With the onslaught of COVID-19, SSIP packs were sent to nearly 160 rural and remote Queensland facilities as part of the Airway and Breathing Kit in the revised Rural and Remote Emergency Services Standardisation (RRESS) Guidelines. ‘The timing was perfect to help with preparedness for the pandemic and the feedback received from these facilities has been overwhelmingly positive,’ Jacob said.
The impact of this rollout was dramatically increased through the work of the RSQ Education Support Team (RSQEst) who conducted an extensive education campaign incorporating SSIP, which reached 500 staff from 77 facilities in just 8 weeks. The PROV-ED Team has been delighted to liaise with the Rural and Remote Clinical Support Unit to help ensure rural and remote facilities have the resources required to deal with COVID-19.
Thank you to the long list of organisations and individuals who have contributed to the final SSIP package. For more information visit our Improvement Exchange or email proved-project@health.qld.gov.au.
PICTURED ABOVE: Staff on Christmas Island celebrate the arrival of their SSIP packs.
