New Critical Care Nurse Standing Orders ensures timely care in our Emergency Departments

Consumers visiting Eastern Health Emergency Departments will receive improved timely care, ensuring their immediate health needs are met thanks to new Critical Care Nurse Standing Orders (CCRNSO).

Nurse Practitioner (Emergency) and CCRNSO Project Lead, Rebecca Sedgman explains how standing orders enable faster pain management in our busy Emergency Department (ED) environments.

“A standing order in the Emergency Department is a new policy that allows critical care nurses to administer a limited number of prescription medications based on a consumer’s presenting complaint or symptoms, without needing a doctor’s direct order each time.

“With the high volume of patients presenting to our emergency departments across Eastern Health, enabling our highly skilled advanced practice nurses to work at the top of their scope of practice and action a standing order means our ED nurses can better support our consumers in meeting their care needs,” Ms Sedgman said.

After completing additional professional development through both a theoretical and face-to-face learning package, our senior nurses are able to independently action pharmacological care when required.

While the current CCRNSO is in place at the Eastern Health Box Hill ED, our Angliss and Maroondah campuses will soon follow suit.

“We are a few weeks post launch and we have over 40 percent of our ED Critical Care Registered Nurses having completed the training and the feedback thus far has been terrific. It great to see the enthusiasm among staff who already appreciate the benefits of timely care and have already implemented the new process,” Ms Sedgman said.