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1. Home
2. Projects
3. Projects 2009-11
4. State-wide Child Health Network (CHN) Allied Health Clinical Education and Support

State-wide Child Health Network (CHN) Allied Health Clinical Education and Support

Aims and objectives

To appoint an Allied Health Educator in each of the 3 Child Health Networks to co-ordinate and facilitate the current and ongoing clinical education and support needs / programs for allied health professionals (AHPs) who work with children in all NSW Area Health Services.

Method

• In 2004, the three Child Health Networks successfully collaborated in a project ("Improving Education and Clinical Support to Allied Health Professionals Working with Children") to identify the needs of AHP's working with children in NSW in relation to education and clinical support.
• In 2005 – 2008, 2 further projects (GESCHN / NCHN – "Supporting Allied Health Professionals Working with Children" & WCHN) were undertaken to develop and implement cost effective models of support for AHP working with children across NSW. It was evident from the evaluation that there remains an ongoing need for continuing education and clinical support for AHP.
• Further to the above, other projects were undertaken concurrently to support AHP, including telehealth and secondments. Findings from these projects included improvement in clinical knowledge and skills; improved networking across the CHN; improved staff satisfaction and increased levels of staff confidence in treating children.
• The findings from the above projects have lead to better outcomes for children and their families with treatment interventions able to be undertaken closer to home. This is in line with Recommendations from Garling Inquiry (2008); NSW State Health Plan (2006); NSW State Plan (2006); National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (2008) & Children and Young People's Health Priority Taskforce (2008).
• The Recommendation of the "Supporting Allied Health Professionals working with Children Report" is:
  • That NSW Health funds the recruitment of 3 FTE positions (one per CHN) to co-ordinate/ facilitate the ongoing programs started in this project. This position will be an Allied Health Educator; Level 5 (NSW Health Service Health Professionals Award 2007) or other equivalent Allied Health Award.

    It is essential that the budget for this position include appropriate funds for travel, resource development, ongoing education and communication.

  • The creation of these positions are in line with recommendations made in the Final Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry: Acute Care Services in NSW Public Hospitals, Peter Garling SC (2008) where it is recommended that consideration be given to the creation of specific positions for the provision of education to Allied Health Professionals.

  • This will achieved by:

    • Co-ordination and facilitation of the ongoing programs to support allied health professionals who work with children in all NSW Area Health Services.
    • Expansion of the current GESCHN TeleHealth education program to all three (3) Child Health Networks to facilitate state-wide education for Allied Health Professionals working with children. This is in line with a recommendation from the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) "the NSW Dept of Health widen the use of TeleHealth capacity to help promote clinical, financial, educational and administrative best practice".
    • Continuation of Allied to Kids newsletter to be circulated monthly to provide information and resources to Allied Health Professionals working with children. The newsletter will include topics identified by Allied Health Professionals and contain up to date information and resources. The newsletter will also continue to advertise upcoming training events &/or conferences; TeleHealth education sessions / DVDs etc.
    • Maintenance of the static Child Health Network Webpage to be launched early in 2009 on the NSW Health website.
    • Development of discipline specific WebPages to be linked to the static Child Health Network Webpage. This would include the continuation of the Information Technology & Clinical Resource Working Group to facilitate the development and identification of educational and clinical information to be placed on this webpage.
    • Facilitate the development of discipline specific and / or multidisciplinary Allied Health Clinical Practice Guidelines
    • Establishment and facilitation of a multidisciplinary working party to focus on co-ordinated planning of state-wide child health education and training, to be held in rural and metropolitan venues. The current five most requested education topics identified are: paediatric feeding, autism, child language, sensory processing and keeping up with evidence based practice. Further topics will be identified by clinicians.
    • Repeat courses and workshops in other Centres / Areas that have proven to be successful, such as: Muscle Management Workshop, Gait in Cerebral Palsy, The Mentoring Course, Multidisciplinary Feeding workshop (identified in 1.v) and the Talipes Course. These courses will be run on a cost neutral basis.
    • Manage and further develop the current secondment programs on a state-wide basis to enable Allied Health Professionals to meet their education and clinical support needs.
    • Ensure that discharge processes are streamlined by continued collaboration and evaluation between Tertiary Hospitals and Area Health Services.
    • Determine the need for the creation of listserves for other Allied Health Professionals, which are currently outside the scope of this project. The development of these will be dependent on existing networks, and resources.

Key performance indicators

The success of the project will be measured by:

• State-wide telehealth program with joint responsibility across the 3 children's hospitals.
• 11 Allied to Kids newsletters disseminated annually.
• Static CHN Webpage
• Six Profession specific WebPages on the CHN Webpage.
• A Process for the development of clinical Practice Guidelines established and those established published on the AH CHN Webpage
• Committee established and 6 courses/ workshops run annually.
• State-wide secondment program with joint responsibility across the 3 children's hospitals.
• Discharge / Transition process established to facilitate care to / from the 3 children's hospitals.
• The need will be determined and listserves established as appropriate.
• A submission to NSW Health to establish AH Educator positions in the 3 CHN prepared at the end of the funding period, as per the CHN Clinical Nurse Consultant positions.

Progress

• The Allied Health Telehealth program occurs on a fortnightly basis with an average of 48 sites participating in 2011. The 2011 program involves presentations by Allied Health professionals from across the state.
• 16 editions of the newsletter were produced and distributed between February 2010 and June 2011.
• The static Child Health Network webpage was recently updated to include a link to the Child Health Network Allied Health website
• A multidisciplinary website is hosted on the Northern Child Health Network website as this is the only NSW CHN website that is regularly updated. Access has been given to the three Allied Health Educators via a free Content Management System so that they can make changes to pages within their site.
• A literature search was conducted to gather information regarding relevant clinical practice guidelines. Two clinical practice guideline
  working parties were convened following the distribution of a state-wide expression of interest. The two areas of focus for these working parties are paediatric feeding and cerebral palsy. These working parties continue to meet on a monthly basis.
• The Education and Clinical Resources Working Party was established in August 2010. Workshops focussing on paediatric feeding (1), cerebral palsy (2), brain injury (2), mental health (2) and resilience training (3) are being conducted.
• Secondment placements have been offered to 23 AHP across the 3 Child Health Networks. These placements have occurred either at the tertiary children’s hospitals or within specialist services.
• A discharge/referral form was developed through the Education and Clinical Resources Working Party. Variants of this form were trialled across the Tertiary Children’s Hospitals. A formal trial was conducted within the Occupational Therapy Department of Sydney Children’s Hospital.
• Listserves had previously been created for Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Psychology, Social Work and Speech Pathology. All of these listserves transitioned from email based listserves (hosted by Majordomo
  through NSW Health) to online clinical networking groups (hosted by HSNet). A paediatric networking group was established for paediatric Play Therapists in December 2010.
  

 

For more information contact:

 

	GESCHN	NCHN	WCHN
Name:	Virginia Binns	Jenny Martin	Lyn Biviano
Position title:	Clinical Director, Community and Ambulatory Care	Director Allied Health, KGNS	Chair, Clinical Support Program Allied Health, Children’s Hospital Westmead
Phone number:	02 9382 1050	02 4921 4377	02 9845 2624

 

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