Mid North Coast - Advanced Paediatric Life Support
This project was designed to meet the educational needs of rural and remote health centres that provide emergency care to children. It involved the review of all paediatric emergency processes and equipment at Port Macquarie Base Hospital and the accreditation of staff in Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS) and re-accreditation of staff in Paediatric Basic Life Support over a duration of two days.
The Neonatal Emergency Response Team (NETS) not only provides a retrieval service but has a commitment to providing education for both medical and nursing staff. They agreed to provide an expert paediatric emergency nursing Nurse Educator to meet the following objectives:
- to accredit 30 registered nurses in evidence based Advanced Paediatric Life Support and reaccredit those who require Basic Paediatric Life Support
- to review all paediatric emergency processes and associated equipment with the plan to provide recommendations were improvements can be made
On the completion of the 2-day programme NETS have provided a APLS package that can be utilised by the Critical Care Educator at Port Macquarie Base Hospital to continue accrediting the remaining emergency department and intensive care staff.
This opportunity was taken up by staff from Port Macquarie Base Hospital, Coffs Harbour Base Hospital and Bellingen Hospital.