{"id":2973,"date":"2023-12-06T12:18:46","date_gmt":"2023-12-06T02:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/uncategorized\/stars-podss-reassuring-patients"},"modified":"2024-03-20T13:56:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T03:56:54","slug":"stars-podss-reassuring-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/news\/stars-podss-reassuring-patients","title":{"rendered":"STARS Post-Operative Discharge Support Service (PODSS) reassuring patients after surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

STARS Post-Operative Discharge Support Service (PODSS) reassuring patients after surgery<\/h1>\n
\"L-R

L-R Jane Holt PODSS CNC, Katie Burke CNC PODSS Project and Rebecca Pickering PODSS CNC<\/p><\/div>\n

The Surgical, Treatment, and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) is piloting a new Post-Operative Discharge Support Service (PODSS), a telehealth pathway for patients who are discharged and have post-operative concerns or questions.<\/h4>\n

The service aims to improve patient access to care following their procedure and avoid representations to Metro North emergency departments.<\/p>\n

All post-operative patients (excluding plastic surgeries) discharged from STARS and within 30 days of their procedure date are eligible to access the service via a mobile phone number.<\/p>\n

Clinical Nurse Consultant (CNC) for PODSS project Katie Burke has already seen a big demand for the service.<\/p>\n

\u201cPODSS improves the quality of post-operative care by providing patients with a place to ask any questions or report any post-surgery concerns to a Clinical Nurse Consultant. In the first five weeks of operation, we already had over 305 calls to the service,\u201d Katie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe calls have been a mix of queries regarding pain and pain relief, wound care, general post op follow-up advice to more serious complications requiring streamlining to appropriate services.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the best examples of the use of PODSS is for tonsillectomy patients. These patients\u2019 pain often peaks on day 4 \u2013 6 after surgery but this can be a concern to them as they expect pain to improve as time goes on.<\/p>\n

These patients can call PODSS to discuss their symptoms and the CNC can usually optimise their pain relief regimes and reassure patients or provide appropriate interventions where necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince PODSS go-live, no tonsillectomy patients have attended ED with pain as their presenting complaint. This is a significant decrease in ED presentations and highlights the effectiveness of PODSS,\u201d Katie said.<\/p>\n

As well as provide reassurance about normal post-surgery expectations, Katie said the service can also detect a possible serious complication early on so that it can be treated early.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our calls to PODSS was a patient complaining of right shoulder pain. After listening to their symptoms and collecting collateral information, we were able to facilitate a streamlined ED presentation at their local emergency department where they were diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad PODSS not been available and easily accessible, this patient acknowledged they would have waited considerably longer to get medical attention and potentially had an adverse outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patients who have accessed the service have been very appreciative of the support that PODSS provides.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thankful that I could reach out to professional and qualified staff, when I was a bit worried after my surgery. She put my mind at ease. Thank you so much,\u201d one patient commented.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nurses at PODSS have been excellent, very supportive, informative and reassuring. I don’t think I could have coped without support from PODSS,\u201d another patient reported.<\/p>\n

The PODDS trial will continue until June 2024.<\/p>\n

PODSS has received funding to continue until end of June 2024 at STARS.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STARS is piloting a new Post-Operative Discharge Support Service (PODSS), a telehealth pathway for patients who are discharged and have post-operative concerns or questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":2974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-stars"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3128,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2973\/revisions\/3128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/metronorth.health.qld.gov.au\/stars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}