16 January 2024

Grampians Health’s commitment to the rollout of the Timely Emergency Care Collaborative (TECC) project at its Horsham campus has gained further ground with the appointment of Rebecca Hudson as project coordinator. 

Rebecca will be providing day to day leadership and coordination of this collaborative across the Horsham campus. Her role will include building and maintaining positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders. 

The TECC project is providing the opportunity to rethink how we deliver care with the aim to improve access to emergency care through system-wide change. 

Introduced to 14 health services across Victoria, the project is expected to help expediate the delivery of emergency care and care continuity. 

Grampians Health Regional Director Medicine, Emergency, ICU and Continuing Care Services Kate Pryde said the TECC collaborative took a whole of system view of patient flow and was pursuing patient flow improvements both within and across health services. 

“Reflecting a system wide approach, the collaborative will maintain a dedicated focus on leadership needed to implement, grow and spread improvements at a system level and use system wide data to support decision making,” Ms Pryde said. 

“Rebecca is a welcome addition to the team, and she will provide implementation and delivery support, including the application of improvement methods and change management,” she said. 

“The current focus for improvement at Horsham ED is to review the fast track procedure and implement such strategies as nurse-initiated x-ray and nurse-initiated analgesia. 

“We will also develop and trial a short stay for low risk patients presenting with chest pain. 

“We have already introduced nurse-initiated pathology so that blood sample results are expediated. We are currently monitoring the results from that initiative.” 

Ms Hudson said she was enjoying the challenge of her new role. 

“We want to reduce the length of stay on both admitted and non-admitted patients in the emergency department and part of the inpatient stream is helping to get those admitted patients from emergency to the wards as quickly as possible,” Ms Hudson said. 

“Our recently appointed eagle nurse will help with that particular flow by keeping an eye on patients in ED and monitoring their care. We also have nurses overseeing both the ED system and the inpatient system. 

“My role is working closely with those nurses and reporting our results to the Department of Health. 

“The point of all this is that we don’t want patients to be kept in ED for longer than necessary, but we also want to make sure they are getting the right care in a timely manner.”