Care Right Now: Evaluating the Collaborative Emergency Centre Experience in Nova Scotia On Wednesday, December 10th a press conference was held in Halifax to present “Care Right Now: Evaluating the Collaborative Emergency Centre Experience in Nova Scotia.” Mary Jane Hampton, a health care and social policy consultant, evaluated Collaborative Emergency Centres (CEC) in the province to determine their success in addressing chronic, unplanned emergency department closures. Hampton’s evaluation determined the service was largely successful in its mandate to improve wait times and reduce closures. According to Hampton, the CEC’s operated as the first line of health care, however same day/next day access to one’s personal care provider or family doctor should be the priority. Hampton says the addition of more daytime, evening and weekend hours offered more flexibility and accommodation for the public, and reduced time constraints on family physicians who were able to be more available for their patients. The CEC model pairs an RN and a paramedic, or, in one case, two RNs, to provide off-hours medical care in rural areas. The team would either provide immediate care, or transfer a patient to a regional health care facility if their situation was too serious to be treated at the CEC. However, Hampton agreed that the program was not without its drawbacks, the most serious of which was the lack of support for RNs who work alongside paramedics in providing overall care and service. Because Paramedics are not trained to run a facility like a clinic, or care for in-patients, the RN’s were left with an overwhelming amount of work, while the paramedics were often underused and unable to do anything more than sit and wait for a patient to arrive. According to Hampton, overnight shifts rarely saw more than one patient. This amounted to shifts that could easily overwhelm a single RN, and long periods without work for the paramedic. Another area of concern was that of short staffing. Because so few people work in the CEC program, a sick employee or a vacation day could force services to shut down. This places a tremendous amount of pressure on the individuals who work at the CEC, and does not provide them with adequate support should be unable to make it into a shift. The NSNU supports a system which enables better access to emergency medical services for individuals around the province. However, it is necessary that such a system respects the contractual rights of nurses. The NSNU maintains that paramedics make invaluable contributions to the healthcare system, however we believe the RN/RN model or RN/LPN model which allows for patient care throughout the CEC at times of low census in overnight hours should be the industry standard. We will continue working with the Department of Health and Wellness on this to improve working conditions for nurses who work in Collaborative Emergency Centres around the province.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 14:16:37 +0000
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