Hunter - Outreach Acquired Brain Injury Review Clinic / Outreach Education Support
Services for children and adolescents with acquired brain injury (ABI) in the Hunter region have been consolidating and expanding in recent years and now extend from acute inpatient rehabilitation through to community/school integration and annual medical and allied health review in the acquired brain injury review clinic.
The establishment of the John Hunter Children's Hospital as the tertiary referral centre for children residing in northern NSW, has seen the number of paediatric neurotrauma admissions increase significantly. Children from the Mid North Coast and New England health regions in particular, are now regularly admitted to the John Hunter Children's Hospital and this in turn creates a demand for appropriate follow up services. A review of current clients revealed that on average, 20% of referrals to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Team (BIRT) reside in either the Mid North Coast or New England health regions, with the majority of these referrals coming from the Mid North Coast. In the past, children were referred back to the Paediatric Worker in their particular health region and brought back to Newcastle for medical and allied health review as required.
A number of difficulties have arisen with the current system:
- Disruption to child and family unit
- Expense of often lengthy journeys and overnight accommodation
- Child's local service providers are peripheral to the system
- Review may be inaccurate due to the effects of fatigue brought on by the travel
- Communication between all service providers is difficult to facilitate
- No opportunity for education of local service providers
Families and service providers from these health regions were consulted and indicated that the following services would most appropriately meet their needs, which led to the project being conducted in the following way:
- Paediatric workers in brain injury services in the NCHN were contacted and defined the format of each clinic
- Liaison occurred with insurers to establish an acceptable billing strategy for compensable clients.
- The first clinic was held in Taree in 2004 and was well attended.
- The educational needs of paediatric workers in NCHN has been ascertained and an appropriate educational program was devised to coincide with Outreach Clinics
- A Yahoo Chat Group "Discovering the Hidden World" - Fostering Professional and Parental Support for Paediatric Brian Injury by the Development of Internet Access Groups was established.