Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Urgent and Emergent Care Statewide Clinical Network

The Statewide Urgent Care Clinical Network is committed to supporting urgent, unplanned, non life-threatening care.

Page Contents

  • Related news
  • Vision and goals
  • Steering Committee
  • Current projects and collaborations
  • Related information

Related News

HIRAID® now implemented across 6 LHNs in South Australia

After suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion in Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work (CAL­HN), Noth­ern Ade­laide LHN, South Ade­laide LHN, Women and Chil­dren Hos­pi­tal Net­work, Eyre and Far Nnoth LHN and Lime Coast LHN) are imple­ment­ing HIRAID®.

Read the full story

CALHN to be the first to implement HIRAID® to improve the quality of nursing assessment in its emergency department

After suc­cess in New South Wales, South Aus­tralian LHNs to imple­ment HIRAID®, the only val­i­dat­ed, evi­dence-based frame­work that empow­ers emer­gency nurs­es to improve nurs­ing assessment.

Read the full story
Vision and Goals

Vision

Statewide col­lab­o­ra­tion in the approach to urgent and emer­gent care that puts the com­mu­ni­ty needs at the cen­tre and enhances time­ly and equi­table access to urgent & emer­gent care in the most appro­pri­ate setting.

Our mis­sion is to have opti­mal usage of avail­able resources that is com­mu­ni­ty cen­tered, whilst apply­ing new and inno­v­a­tive strate­gies to improve efficiency.

Goals

We’re com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing urgent, unex­pect­ed, non-life threat­ening care that is based on peo­ples’ expe­riences, that:

  • Puts the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty at the centre
  • Has a diverse statewide net­work rep­re­sent­ing all aspects of Urgent and Emer­gent Care
  • Acts as a con­duit through which poli­cies, pro­to­cols and guide­lines are reviewed and endorsed by broad Urgent and Emer­gent com­mu­ni­ty representation
  • Estab­lish­es an envi­ron­ment where mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tions between essen­tial stake­hold­ers exists, in order to com­bat the siloes that exist in healthcare
  • Advo­cates for, and keep­ing the focus on, time­ly, equi­table access to care
  • Active­ly engages in strate­gic plan­ning for statewide or rel­e­vant local ini­tia­tives in the urgent and emer­gent care landscape.

Urgent and Emer­gent Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work Steer­ing Committee

The Steer­ing Com­mit­tees pro­vide over­sight of the devel­op­ment, imple­men­ta­tion and eval­u­a­tion of the net­works’ activ­i­ties.

The Steer­ing Com­mit­tees are con­struct­ed to reflect a bal­ance of expe­ri­ence across met­ro­pol­i­tan and coun­try as well as from with­in and out of hos­pi­tal sec­tors. The Steer­ing Com­mit­tees are led by a Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work Lead.

Dr Ruth Holmes

Urgent and Emergent Care Statewide Clinical Network Lead

MBBS BSc (Hons) MRCS (Ed) FRCEM FACEM AFRACMA

Ruth is a Senior Emer­gency Depart­ment Spe­cial­ist with­in Cen­tral Ade­laide Local Health Net­work and the Statewide Vir­tu­al Care Ser­vice. She grad­u­at­ed from Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don in 2000 and com­plet­ed her train­ing in Emer­gency Med­i­cine in 2013. 

Her clin­i­cal expe­ri­ence is broad, hav­ing worked in Emer­gency Depart­ments both in the UK and Aus­tralia. This broad expe­ri­ence has pro­vid­ed her many oppor­tu­ni­ties to observe and be part of dif­fer­ent sys­tems. Ruth’s clin­i­cal inter­ests are var­ied, but all align with her desire to opti­mise patient care with­in our sys­tems, includ­ing Elder­ly Trau­ma, Enhanc­ing cul­tur­al safe­ty with­in Emer­gency Depart­ment and human factors. 

Ruth has always had a pas­sion to see health­care deliv­ered in an effi­cient, com­pas­sion­ate, patient cen­tred manner. 

Steering Committee members
Dr Ruth Holmes

Senior Emer­gency Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist CAL­HN and SAVCS and Clin­i­cal Lead, Urgent and Emer­gent Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Network

Dr Emi­ly GibsonGen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er and GP Inte­gra­tion Offi­cer NAL­HN, Deputy Chair Urgent and Emer­gent Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work and Co-Chair Pri­ma­ry Care Subcommittee
Dr Alice Bourke
Clin­i­cal Lead Geri­atric & Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Con­sul­tant, NALHN
Allan Per­ri­am

Inte­gra­tive Care Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er Can­di­date, CALHN

Andrew Tay­lor
Nurse Unit Man­ag­er, Emer­gency Depart­ment, YNLHN
Anto­nia Berkinshaw
Assis­tant Direc­tor, Pri­ma­ry Care Inter­gra­tion, DHW
Dr Eleanor MacDougall
Head of Unit Retrieval Coordination/​Emer­gency Con­sul­tant, SAAS, Med­STAR & NALHN
Fiona Margie
Gen­er­al Man­ag­er- Com­mu­ni­ty, Pri­ma­ry and Pop­u­la­tion Health 
Jason Wal­ters
Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er, RMCLHN
Jess Gan­nonDirec­tor Sys­tem Access and Capac­i­ty, DHW
Dr John Williams
Gen­er­al Prac­ti­tion­er, EFNLHN 
Kate ClarkeExec­u­tive Direc­tor, Statewide Oper­a­tional Ser­vices, SAAS
Kim­ber­ly HumphriesPub­lic Health Med­ical Con­sul­tant and Cli­mate Change Lead and Senior Emer­gency Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist NALHN
Kuz­ma OttoCon­sumer Representative
Lyn­da Whiteway

Con­sumer Representative

Madeleine Bail­lieClin­i­cal Prac­tice Direc­tor, CALHN
Dr Melanie Smith
Co-Direc­tor SAVCS, Gen­er­al Practitioner
Dr Michael Edmonds

Senior Emer­gency Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist and Head of Unit Emer­gency Depart­ment, TQEH, CALHN

Dr Scott LewisRur­al Sup­port Ser­vice and Anaes­thet­ic GP
Skye DonoghueAdvanced Nurs­ing Direc­tor Oper­a­tions Lead, State Health Coor­di­na­tion Centre
Sub groups

Emer­gency Care Subcommittee

The pur­pose of the Emer­gency Care Sub-com­mit­tee is to unite a rep­re­sen­ta­tive group to col­lab­o­rate and pro­vide expert clin­i­cal and oper­a­tional knowl­edge to improve patient out­comes, path­ways and patient flow in Emer­gency Departments.

  • ED EMR and Dig­i­tal Improve­ment Col­lab­o­ra­tive: Under the gov­er­nance of the Emer­gency Care sub-com­mit­tee, this group brings togeth­er experts with clin­i­cal and oper­a­tional knowl­edge for mat­ters relat­ed to the design, use and improve­ment of Sun­rise EMR, and oth­er dig­i­tal health ini­tia­tives relat­ed to Emer­gency Departments.

Pri­ma­ry Health Care Subcommittee

The pur­pose of the Pri­ma­ry Health­care Care Sub­com­mit­tee is to unite a group of pri­ma­ry health care providers to col­lab­o­rate and pro­vide expert clin­i­cal and oper­a­tional knowl­edge on pri­ma­ry health aspects of urgent and emer­gent care pathways.

For more infor­ma­tion, or if you would like to join a group, please con­tact us at CEIHUrgentandEmergentCare@​sa.​gov.​au

Current Projects and Collaborations

  • Emer­gency Care Subcommittee
  • Form­ing a Pri­ma­ry Care Subcommittee
  • Part­ner­ship with SA Vir­tu­al Care Ser­vice to devel­op and imple­ment care models
  • Improv­ing region­al area access to senior clin­i­cal deci­sion sup­port and trans­fer to metro care
Related information

Hear from Dr Ruth Holmes about the Statewide Urgent Care Clin­i­cal Net­work as part of the 2022 CEIH Con­ver­sa­tion Series

Have a question?

Or want to know more about the Urgent Care Statewide Clin­i­cal Net­work? Please email CEIHUrgentandEmergentCare@​sa.​gov.​au.