Health-care workers across Nova Scotia are brushing up on the basics of how to deliver trauma care.
Trauma Nova Scotia has developed a province-wide training program designed to equip physicians and health-care providers with the skills and knowledge for trauma situations.
Dr. Robert Green is the senior medical director for Trauma Nova Scotia. He says the goal was to establish a standard skillset for trauma care, across all health-care systems.
“I think its incredibly important that clinicians all over the province have the skills and the knowledge of how to diagnose and manage the first few hours of manage trauma patient care,” says Green.
Green says the training course also gives health-care professionals the chance to network and share experiences that will translate directly to better patient outcomes.
He says he doesn’t think Nova Scotia has a problem with trauma performance, but that there is room for improvement.
“Is it as good as it can be? Absolutely not,” says Green.
“I think there’s always room for education. There’s always room for improving patient outcomes and knowledge translation of kind of best care practices.”
Focusing on rural areas
An emphasis is being made on teaching the course to health-care systems in rural areas with fewer resources to address trauma patients.
So far, Trauma Nova Scotia has taught the course at health-care centres in Truro, Amherst, New Glasgow, Antigonish, Cape Breton and Bridgewater.
“Traumas can happen anywhere. They don’t all happen in the city,” says Jenna Faulkner, the provincial education lead for the program.
“It’s really important that these sites have the education, the knowledge, the tools, the confidence to be able to manage these patients, to be able to get them to where they need to be for definitive care.”
In Nova Scotia, all major trauma patients are transferred to the QEII hospital in Halifax for life-saving treatment.
The QEII foundation funded the program, a commitment Trauma Nova Scotia hopes will continue as they make plans to teach the course into 2024.