Event Details

Zoom Meeting

Event Icon

21 August 2024
12:30pm - 1:30pm AEST

21 August 2024
 – 21 August 2024

Zoom Meeting

Event Icon

21 Aug 2024
12:30pm - 1:30pm

21 August 2024
 – 21 August 2024

Presenters:

Leisa Bauer
Nurse Unit Manager, Children’s Emergency Department
The Prince Charles Hospital

Leisa has been a Registered Nurse for 24 years and her experience extends from neonatal, paediatric & adult critical care across the spectrum of tertiary, quaternary, regional & rural hospitals. Leisa was a paediatric and adult intensive care unit nurse educator for many years and recently made the leap into leadership and management as the Nurse Unit Manager of Queensland’s second busiest Children’s emergency department, seeing over 37 000 children a year. Leisa is passionate about development of individuals and teams, recently completing a Diploma of Professional Coaching and is now a Metro North internal coach.







Event Dates

Date: 21 August 2024
Time: 12:30pm – 1:30pm AEST

Date: 21 August 2024 – 21 August 2024

Location

Zoom Meeting

Web Conference,

,

Paeds with a Wheeze: Improving Patient Flow through Nurse Led Stretching of Inhaled Salbutamol

Paediatric Emergency Care

Zoom Meeting

Web Conference,

,



About

Wheeze is one of the most common emergency department presentations for pre-school aged children (greater than 1 year, but less than 5 years).  The typical treatment regime involves an intensive 'burst' of salbutamol (Ventolin) via a spacer and mask, followed by an admission to the Children's Short Stay Unit where the aim is to gradually stretch the interval between salbutamol doses to 3-hourly before discharge home. This is guided by regular, repeated assessments by a doctor or nurse practitioner.

When there is a surge in presentations to the emergency department, it becomes problematic for the treating clinician to perform these assessments in a timely fashion as they are concurrently managing several other children in the emergency department.  This leads to medication delays, in some cases patient deterioration, staff and carer frustration, and challenges to patient flow.

The ‘Paeds with a Wheeze’ project evaluated whether Nurse Led Stretching of Inhaled Salbutamol reduces length of stay in pre-school aged children presenting to The Prince Charles Hospital Children's Emergency Department. Nurse Led Stretching of Inhaled Salbutamol is a pathway that optimises registered nurse’s scope of practice to perform detailed respiratory assessments on children presenting with a wheezing illness to determine when the next dose of salbutamol should be administered.  This low-cost simple clinical initiative made a positive difference to patient flow, facilitating doctors and nurse practitioners to remain on the floor seeing acute, undifferentiated patients and reducing length of stay for pre-school aged children with an acute wheezing illness admitted to the Short Stay Unit.   

  • Implementation of Nurse Led Salbutamol Stretching into a Paediatric Short Stay Emergency Unit and optimisation of Registered Nurses Scope of Practice.
  • Background to Nurse Led Stretching of Inhaled Salbutamol (NLSIS) and Emergency Department Patient Flow
  • Supporting Resources for NLSIS implementation
  • Project outcomes for Paeds With a Wheeze and Lessons Learnt so far.

Key Takeaways

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