The following resources support NSW Health nurses' safe and confident transition to using the Emergency care assessment and treatment (ECAT) protocols.
- Emergency Nursing Capability Framework
- NSW Health ECAT Education and Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) Guide
- two education modules
These were developed by the Health Education and Training Institute (HETI), in partnership with the ACI and experienced emergency nurses.
The Emergency Nurse Capability Framework
The framework:
- supports the professional development of nurses in the specialty field of emergency healthcare
- enables the development of an emergency nursing education pathway
- can be used to standardise education and training, enabling nurses to work to their full scope of practice and facilitates the transfer of skills across NSW Health.
View the framework on the HETI website
Education and recognition of prior learning (RPL)
The NSW Health ECAT Education and RPL Guide supports the transition of the existing nursing workforce to use the ECAT protocols by outlining the knowledge, skills and training that is required to use the ECAT protocols and recognising and documenting prior learning.
View the guide on the HETI website
Education requirements to support ECAT
The following diagram provides a high level overview of the education requirements to use the ECAT protocols.
The ECAT protocols include unshaded, pink shaded/diamond and blue shaded/triangle portions to indicate where different levels of knowledge, training and skills are required to initiate interventions and investigations.
Always read the NSW Health Policy Directive The Use of Emergency Care and Treatment (ECAT) Protocols (PD2024_011) in conjunction with the ECAT Education and RPL guide.
Download the diagram (PDF 177.7 KB)
Prior to using the ECAT protocols, registered and enrolled nurses must complete the required education as outlined in the ECAT Education and RPL Guide.
This includes the following two modules:
Course code: 493013476
- Introduction to emergency nursing (including cognitive bias and situational awareness)
- Building the full clinical picture (including red flags)
- Providing care to patients in emergency care settings
- Communication in the emergency care environment
View Nursing in Emergency Care Settings on My Health Learning
Course code: 493029240
- Safety and governance principles in the context of ECAT
- Practicing safe, appropriate, and responsive quality nursing (scope of practice)
- ECAT protocol structure
- Using the ECAT protocols (identify ECAT protocol, initiate care, re-assess, progress)
- Clinical reasoning and decision making in the context of ECAT (cognitive bias and situational awareness)
- Communicating when using the ECAT protocols
The following module has been developed to support nurses using ECAT protocols within the Cerner eMR. It is not a mandatory module.
Course code: 524278798
- Demonstrate how to use the Cerner eMR when using ECAT protocols
- Use PowerForms to commence an ECAT protocol
- Request medications and investigations using PowerPlans
Antibiotic administration instructional video
The adult and paediatric sepsis protocols have a different format to the rest of the ECAT protocols, and direct nurses to follow the NSW Health Sepsis pathways as well as use the ECAT protocol.
These protocols, as well as the adult and paediatric unwell immunocompromised person and meningitis and/or encephalitis protocols include antibiotic administration in critical situations.
This video will show nurses how to use the ECAT Adult Sepsis Protocol, the NSW Health Adult Sepsis Pathway and ECAT Cerner eMR Adult Sepsis PowerPlan concurrently and demonstrates how to use the gentamicin dose calculator to care for critically ill patients. The process for using paediatric resources is similar.
We encourage nurses to watch this video prior to using the protocols to support confidence and understanding of the process required.
Six-minute intensive training resources
Six-minute intensive training (SMIT) is a short exercise designed to deliver key information to learners in as little as six minutes. The ECAT SMITs have been designed to support nursing educators to deliver tailored information and scenarios on using ECAT protocols to clinicians. They can be used in staff huddles and in-service times.