Emergency care assessment and treatment (ECAT) is a statewide, co-designed program that aims to standardise nurse-initiated emergency care.
Nurse-initiated protocols and models of care are well established in NSW emergency departments. They safely reduce the time a patient waits for treatment, improve the standard of care and reduce the patient’s length of stay in the emergency department.
However, the protocols, education and governance frameworks vary across NSW. This can lead to variations in patient care, nursing practice and the ability for nurses to transfer their skills between hospitals.
The ECAT program aims to provide an improved experience for patients and increase staff satisfaction through supporting metropolitan and rural hospitals to provide consistent care across NSW. This will be achieved through the provision of standardised ECAT protocols, a consistent education pathway for emergency nurses and governance framework.
How are we doing this?
41 adult and 32 paediatric
Based on existing protocols
Standardise the provision and standard of education
Provide the health system with confidence in the safety and competence of emergency nurses to initiate care
Project and change management tools
Sustainability, evaluation and monitoring framework
How will ECAT benefit me?
Delivering consistent best practice initial emergency care across the state will benefit patients, clinicians, hospitals and the health system in the following ways.
- I will receive the same care, regardless of the emergency department I attend.
- I will receive initial treatment more quickly, making my stay more comfortable.
- As a rural patient, I can have life-saving care initiated closer to my home.
- I will be able to proactively attend to the needs of the patient.
- My emergency care skills and expertise will be recognised across all NSW emergency departments.
- I will have a clear understanding of how I can progress in my career.
- This is good for me, my patients and their families because patients have access to timely, standardised emergency care.
- When I see my patients, they will have already had initial pain relief and any required x-rays or pathology ordered.
- I will be able to spend more time on the patient management plan.
- There will be more opportunities to streamline the care I provide in collaboration with emergency nurses.
- Patients will have a better experience.
- Patients will receive quicker initial treatment, which means they could spend less time in hospital.
- Nurses and doctors will feel more supported in the care they provide.
- The onboarding process for new emergency nurses will be more streamlined.
- Education resourcing for emergency nurses can be shared more easily across the state.
How people have been involved
To achieve success, the ECAT program needs input from a range of stakeholders, including emergency nurses and members of medical teams, radiology, pathology, nurse managers, executives and consumers.
The program has been set up with an executive steering committee and several sub-committees:
- Clinical sub-committee
- Education sub-committee
- Medication safety sub-committee
- Implementation sub-committee
- Adult, paediatric, rural, regional and metro representation
- Finalise clinical information within protocols
- Contribute to the ECAT governance framework
Ministry of Health and pillar agencies; local health district (LHD) executives; industry; adult and paediatric clinicians, with representation from rural, regional and metropolitan areas.
- Develop an emergency nurse education framework that supports the use of the ECAT protocols
- Design a standardised emergency nurse education pathway that can be used across NSW
- Contribute to the ECAT governance framework
Ministry of Health and pillar agencies; LHD executives; industry; adult and paediatric clinicians; and consumers, with representation from rural, regional and metropolitan areas.
- Provide expertise to the medication safety within the ECAT protocols
- Develop an ECAT state formulary, linking in with the state formulary (and relevant approvals)
- Contribute to the ECAT governance framework
Ministry of Health and pillar agencies; LHD executives; industry; adult and paediatric clinicians, with representation from rural, regional and metropolitan areas.
- Provide sites with project and change management skills to support the implementation of ECAT
- Develop a toolkit that supports NSW Health organisations to implement ECAT
- Develop statewide evaluation and monitoring plan
- Contribute to the ECAT governance framework
Ministry of Health and pillar agencies; LHD executives; industry; adult and paediatric clinicians; and consumers, with representation from rural, regional and metropolitan areas.
- Provide governance, leadership, advice and endorsement on matters relating to the development and implementation of ECAT
- Provide advice to the ECAT project team about strategic direction and alignment of activities with those of the host LHDs and the broader strategies of the NSW Ministry of Health.
NSW Ministry of Health System and Purchasing Branch and Nursing and Midwifery Office; Clinical Excellence Commission; Health Education and Training Institute, LHD/SHN executives, senior nurses, , eHealth NSW and consumers.
Find out more
Stay up to date with the ECAT Program or join the ECAT Implementation Community of Practice.