Working Groups - Activities and Projects
1. Airways Diseases & Smoking Cessation
1a. Smoking Cessation (Sub-group)
- Develop a proposal to promote the introduction of smoking cessation clinics and heavily subsidised NRT for high risk smokers
- Proposal in final draft
1b. Pulmonary Rehabilitation / Maintenance & Exercise (Sub-group)
- Work with and build on achievements of the CCP to address access to services, service capacity building and sustainability for respiratory conditions including asthma, COPD and non-CF bronchiectasis.
- Proposal being developed
1c. Clinician Training and Patient Education (Sub-group)
- Develop clinician training and patient education programs for asthma (particular emphasis on clinician training for paediatric asthma), COPD and non-CF bronchiectasis.
- Proposal being developed
2. Oxygen / Chronic Ventilatory Support
Oxygen & Related Products
- Develop medical guidelines; standardise processes of application, administration & provision of oxygen and related products
- Standardise patient education material
Chronic Ventilatory Support
- Service Guidelines: Identify centres of excellence and develop minimum standards (including workforce) for the assessment, provision and monitoring of chronic ventilatory support services in the home setting.
2b. Domiciliary Non-Invasive Ventilation
Reduce variation in how patients are assessed, commenced and provided with equipment for home non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in NSW by:
- Developing best practice guidelines for home NIV based, where possible, on evidence
- Developing a model of care, including cost-benefit analysis, for a state-wide domiciliary NIV program in NSW to be submitted to NSW Health
- Developing a state-wide minimum data set
3. Respiratory Infection & Acute Respiratory Failure
Management of Acute Respiratory Failure - NIPPV
- Develop and standardise patient selection criteria
- Source protocols and develop service standards
- Establish current service situation and make evidence-based recommendations
- Address patient follow-up services
Community acquired acute respiratory infections
- Establish common protocols for assessment and management using the pneumonia severity index
- Identify treatment pathways
- Make recommendations on event-driven discharge
Respiratory coordinated care - acute and chronic
- Develop a system of early discharge with specialist community support
- Develop and implement a model for coordinated care of chronic patients in the community
- Develop a dedicated 'Respiratory Hospital in the Home' program, featuring direct referral capabilities from GPs and private specialist rooms, for patients requiring domiciliary (homes, nursing homes, hostels etc.) care for acute respiratory infections.
4. Workforce, Education & Training
1. Training and Education Programs / Courses
- Survey: Conduct a survey of training and education programs / courses to determine the current availability, location, costs of such courses and identify the gaps in content and program availability for the following clinical areas: COPD, Asthma, Sleep Apnoea, Non-Invasive Ventilation, General resp, Other specialised resp, Community resp.
- Core Knowledge Requirements / Skills Sets: Source core skills set / minimum knowledge requirements.
2. Workforce
- Workforce Map: Create a map of respiratory workforce resources across the greater metropolitan area
5. Highly Specialised Diseases & Treatments (Including CF)
1. Service Directory
- Develop a directory of services for highly specialised diseases
- Model of Service: Develop a streamlined state-wide model for adult Cystic Fibrosis services.
- Workforce: Develop minimum workforce standards required to implement CF Australia's standards of care/guidelines.
6. Sleep Disorders
- The Access Economics report Wake Up Australia: The Value of Healthy Sleep (June 2005) will inform the direction of the working group. The report demonstrates the savings of optimal public access to sleep-related healthcare services.
- Determination of access block to sleep services
- 'Map' of the public patient pathway
- Data
Access to local data sets, where they exist, will be requested
A Survey of sleep labs in greater metropolitan NSW is being conducted to determine:
- No. beds
- Time to initial consultation
- Time to diagnostic sleep study
- Time to treatment (lab-based versus auto-titration)
- Time to obtaining equipment/commencing treatment
- Develop a proposal addressing the inadequacies and inequities of sleep services in NSW
7. Rural Respiratory Services
A broadly representative, multidisciplinary body of respiratory clinicians from each of the rural area health services in NSW have indicated their willingness to participate in a working group dedicated to addressing rural respiratory issues.
The group will convene for the first time in July 2008. The initial meeting will be held in Sydney (on a face-to-face basis) followed by quarterly meetings (with video-teleconference facilities) in rural centres on a rotational basis.
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