Disaster & Emergency Medicine Project

Services proposed or being developed

Proposed services seeking funding :-

The First Year of this Project has shown that local GP based Field Medical Teams can be successfully deployed in a Disaster. The Model is supported by Displan Victoria, RACGP, CURHEV, VRDCU, CRH Moe, and accepted by local Emergency Services.

1997 will see a further refinement of the model locally, and the commencement of its spread throughout Victoria. This will be achieved through the Rural Divisions of General Practice with support from their Area Medical Coordinators and the staff of this project.

By the end of 1998, we expect that all Rural Divisions in Victoria will have adopted significant aspects of our model and have provided their own region-specific response to a Disaster. All these models will share some degree of uniformity.

Services currently under development :-

The Project plans to develop and pilot the necessary curriculum(syllabus, materials, delivery process and evaluation) to ensure that Rural General Practitioners develop local disaster and emergency skills, to ensure appropriate responses when disaster or emergency occurs.

The proposed curriculum encourages interaction with all local rural health professionals around disaster/emergency teamwork issues, which have been found to be of major concern to rural communities. It will be designed to be transferable to other rural locations, including towns without hospitals. The project, when complete, is designed to permit later implementation across Australia. It will ultimately target all rural General Practitioners in Australia.

The development strategies will take place over four stages:

Stage 1 (four months)

• Establish a project team based at the Centre for Rural Health, Moe which will include the Project Officer, Mr. Henk Herberts, and be supported by:
• a multidisciplinary Management Group headed by Prof. Roger Strasser. (See 1.4)
• a Reference Group with national representation of relevant disciplines and organisations.
• Collate and critically assess all current Australian syllabus materials which focus on improving disaster/emergency skills and teamwork by multidisciplinary rural health workers. (aboriginal health workers, ambulance officers, doctors, nurse practitioners, country fire authority, police, SES volunteers etc.)
• Establish regional state and national recognition processes.
• Set up a disaster/emergency training data base.
• Identify and critically assess already existing training materials which focus on improving disaster/emergency skills and teamwork by multidisciplinary rural health workers.
• Establish formative and summative evaluation processes.

Stage 2 (eight months)

• Design a training curriculum that is packaged to be accessible, and able to satisfy the real disaster/emergency needs of rural communities (including those without hospitals) and multidisciplinary rural health workers.
• Pilot the implementation of the disaster/emergency skills and teamwork training in three sites in East Victoria, with different levels of services available, and negotiate local training needs with them on a trial basis.
• Continuously monitor the implementation of the programs, and incorporate formative evaluation results.

Stage 3 (two months)

• Document the evaluation of the training program against relevant and measurable performance criteria.
• Make recommendations for the transfer of the program.

Stage 4 (eight months)

Consolidate and make modifications to the multimedia strategies of the disaster/emergency skills and teamwork program to facilitate the teaching/learning process, relevant to the practice location and experience of multidisciplinary students to enable its implementation in many rural towns around Australia.

Key Benefits

Cost effectiveness - The next two years of the Project ($370,000) will see the model implemented in a further 14 rural, and possibly the urban Divisions, giving Victoria full coverage in the case of a Disaster. This is far more cost-effective than asking each Division to start anew.

 

Uniformity of approach - The establishment of a Displan model through a central route, enabling some degree of uniformity.

 

The creation of a transferable Training Package for widespread dissemination. This is of potential commercial value.

Send mail to john_drinkwater@onaustralia.com.au with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 1997 Disaster & Emergency Medicine Project
Last modified: February 14, 1998