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Roles and Responsibilities - SHED - Adult Medical Team

ADULT MEDICAL TEAMS

With the exception of the Children’s team, there are six Adult medical teams who will cover the clinical areas and support the patients and the clinical staff. Each team will be led by an Emergency Physician (EP) during the hours of 0730-2400. The Emergency Physician is the ED consultant of each team who has the responsibility to oversee and support the team, and the patients allocated to the respective cubicles/area. The ED consultant will provide leadership, senior decision making and supervision of the junior doctors. The consultants will oversee patient flow and timely care, liaise with inpatient teams and escalate issues to the Access/AHA Manager.

The teams are:

  1. Front of House (FOH) clinical team
  2. Adult Acute Cubicles team- includes Emergency Physician in Charge (EPIC)
  3. Ambulance (AV)/Support Adult team
  4. Short Stay Unit (SSU) team
  5. Resuscitation Cubicles (RESUS) and Behavioural Assessment Unit (BAU) team
  6. Fast Track and The Hub team

Common roles of all ED Consultants on each clinical shift

  • Lead the formal handover processes
  • Instil peer support and promotion of a positive workplace culture, adopting the core values of Western Health and placing staff safety as a highest priority
  • Check-in of staff well-being, ensure staff have timely meal breaks and check in at end of shift, thank the team for their hard work, provide informal positive feedback on their shift
  • Provide leadership, senior decision making, navigation of the many and complex business rules, supervision and education of the junior doctors, in particular, physical patient review when indicated, being vigilant for red flags, potential omissions of tasks and sources of errors and assistance in referrals
  • Oversee patient flow and timely care including EMR COVID-19 Screening, escalate flow issues to the FC, Access/AHA Manager or to the inpatient team on duty/call consultant as required.
  • Escalate ED issues in a timely and appropriate manner to the EPIC and/or FC
  • Be aware of the whole of ED status so that each team can optimally support the ED
  • Be flexible, responsive and co-operative to ensure appropriate resource allocations throughout the ED in response to individual area demands, this may require having a team member temporarily work in another team or see patients allocated to another team.
  • Respond to urgent reviews or MET call criteria issues within ED
  • Sign off ECGs presented to them by nursing staff
  • Notify clerks of any changes to bed requests such as change in admission team.
  • Ensure the results on Second Screen for patients in their team are “signed off”
  • At end of shift after handover, or on clinical support days, assist in the timely management of “Missed Results”
  • Ensure patients are ready for transfer to ward beds (ED Interim Orders, inpatient referral)
  • Ensure patients are safe for transfer out (e.g. transfer check-list, insulin orders, etc)
  • Ensure patients being discharged home have discharge letters, certificates, etc.
  • Supervise and assess registrar trainees in their workplace based assessments (WBAs).
  • Each role is of critical importance to the timely care and flow of patients. EPs must prioritise clinical shift duties over non-clinical duties – if a Zoom meeting or off the floor meeting is required during a clinical shift they must seek approval for this from the DEM or Deputy DEM and every effort should be made to re-schedule such meetings to non-clinical hours or another appropriate time.

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