Dear colleagues,

To date, most of Queensland’s cases are either people who have recently returned from overseas or have had close contact with those people. As the Easter weekend draws nearer, I can’t stress enough the importance of social distancing, staying at home and hand hygiene to ensure cases don’t spread in the community.

I’ve got lots of important information to share today, including:

• PPE for COVID-19
• Virtual care update
• Virtual training sessions
• Metro North COVID-19 vidcasts

PPE for COVID-19

Thanks to an incredible amount of work behind the scenes, Metro North’s PPE Clinical Advisory Group (CAG) has endorsed the procedure that outlines the levels of PPE to ensure the safety of you and our patients when interacting during the COVID-19 pandemic. The procedure includes guidelines on when to use standard infection control measures, when to COVID-19 specific measures of contact and droplet precautions or contact and airborne precautions.

This procedure is a live document and the PPE CAG will review the procedure when it meets weekly to ensure it remains up to date. If you have any feedback on or questions about this procedure, please escalate this up through your directorate EOC to MN EOC (Attention: Clinical Advisor) so that it can be considered by the PPE CAG.

This procedure applies to all Metro North clinical and non-clinical staff, all patients with suspect, probable or confirmed diagnosis of CODIV-19, and in all settings across the health continuum within Metro North. I encourage you to access the procedure and take the time to understand how it applies to your practice – it’s our individual and collective responsibility to ensure PPE procedures are diligently and consistently applied.

The COVID-19 extranet is a one stop shop for all COVID-19 resources, including PPE, so please be sure to check it out if you haven’t already.

Virtual care update

The move to virtual care to facilitate outpatient appointments and virtual ward workflows continues to mature. This to me is like watching my children grow up before my very eyes – I have done very little myself, but am constantly amazed at how the capability has rapidly developed from concept to reality.

In support of this new virtual world ,the Digital COVID-19 Command Centre (DC3) continues to provide digital system, workflow and hardware support to staff (for all matters that do not fall within the purview of eHealth QLD.

The Virtual Care website is regularly updated with resources to assist with:

• Virtual appointments
• Virtual communication for patients and visitors
• Training and support
• Communicating patient information securely
• Working virtually

Please bear in mind that it’s important you only use apps and resources listed on the site to avoid cyber security issues or information privacy breaches. If you have any questions you can access Support on 1800 198 175, they are doing a fantastic job.

Virtual training sessions

If you have trouble with tech, don’t worry! To help you gain a better understanding of how to use different technologies to support your virtual care or work, virtual training sessions are now available. You can register for sessions here.  Don’t be shy – training sessions are short, targetted and to the point.

Metro North COVID-19 vidcasts

The Vidcasts are proving to be extremely popular, thank you to everyone who is tuning in and a special thank you to our newfound ‘TV personalities’ answering all of Metro North’s COVID-19 questions! If you’re unable to tune in, not to worry! All Vidcasts are uploaded to the video library on the COVID-19 extranet page.

We all play a part in Metro North’s COVID-19 response, we couldn’t do it without you! Thank you for everything you’re doing to support your team, your colleagues, and the community.

Regards,

Dr Liz Rushbrook

Metro North Health Incident Controller

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 1000 08 April 2020
**Metro North has two recorded deaths