Critical Care Clinical Stream

Emergency Departments	Intensive Care Units (ICU)
Trauma Services	Toxicology

The Critical Care Stream is involved in the ongoing evaluation and improvement of Intensive Care and Emergency Department services. With a primary focus of delivering fair and highly effective care within SESLHD. The Stream plays a vital role in dissemination of knowledge and best practice through sharing and benchmarking. The Stream works collaboratively with clinicians to develop annual priorities to enhance the overall quality of care.  

Key functions include:

• Strategic Evaluation: Assess and recommend strategies and models of care to ensure a consistent, efficient and exceptional level of clinical care
• Platform: The Stream acts as hub for sharing knowledge, models of care and best practice to promote continuous improvement
• Annual Priorities: Collaborate closely with critical care clinicians to develop and implement annual priorities aimed at enhancing the quality of care
• Clinical Service Plan: Facilitate the development of district clinical service plans to align care delivery with evolving health care needs
• Quality Improvement Projects: Lead improvement projects by coordinating involvement across the district, ensuring widespread engagement and participation
• Representation: Represent the Critical Care stream at District forums such as the Clinical Quality Council, Clinical Stream and General Managers Committee 
• Policy and Guideline Development: Coordinate the development of centralised policies and guidelines in collaboration with facilities to promote consistency.

Focused Intensive Care Unit priorities for 2023/24

The Intensive Care priorities for 2023/24 aim to improve patient outcomes, enhance the quality of care, and optimise utilisation of intensive care beds. These priorities include:

Ventilator Associate Pneumonia Prevention Initiative: A project aimed at reducing the incidence of ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP). The initiative includes establishing a baseline VAP rate, standardising VAP criteria, introducing a care bundle and providing education to medical staff to enhance understanding of the required criteria for diagnosing VAP. 

Intensive Care Exit Block Management: Develop and share strategies to meet the NSW performance measure. The target is to ensure 70% of intensive care (IC) discharges occur within 6 hours of the decision to discharge (medically cleared). Collaborating with Patient Flow teams is crucial to achieving this target by optimising ward bed allocation for IC discharges.

 

Focused Emergency Department priorities for 2023/24

The Emergency Department priorities for 2023/24 aim to optimise patient care and experience in the ED. These priorities include: 

Implementation of NSW Emergency Care Assessment Treatment (ECAT) Protocols: Introduce ECAT protocols to SESLHD EDs, enabling emergency nurses to initiate clinical care while patients await medical officer assessment. This initiative standardises nurse-initiated care, ensuring all patients receive the same consistent care regardless of the ED they attend.

Reduce incidence of DWN (Did Not Wait) and LAOR (Left At Own Risk) in emergency departments: Share and strengthen strategies to reduce the incidence of DNW and LAOR in emergency departments with a particular focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients.

Dr Grant Eruini-Bennett 
Stream Director 

Suzanne Schacht 
Stream Manager 
Ph: 0419 478 629 
E: suzanne.schacht@health.nsw.gov.au

Julie Lane 
Admin Support 
Ph: 02 9540 8285 
e: julie.lane@health.nsw.gov.au 

• Australian College of Critical Care Nurses 
• Australian Resuscitation Council, NSW Branch
• NSW Health - Emergency Departments 
• NSW Health - Emergency Department Waiting Times
• RESUS4KIDS 
• Sepsis Kills