Ballarat Health Services, Community Rehabilitation Centre - Implementation of a STAT Clinic.

Abstract

Ballarat Health Services, Community Rehabilitation Centre (CRC), is a multidisciplinary allied health service that provides outpatient and community based rehabilitation to clients following a new accident, injury or health condition. The program is streamed into general and neurological cohorts.

Historically the neurological stream of this service has had high demand and a resultant lengthy waiting list. This issue was further heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has anecdotally led to poorer rehabilitation outcomes, reduced efficacy of interventions and secondary complications (e.g. learned non use).

Following an amalgamation of previous quality improvement projects and a service model change, the implementation of a STAT (Specific, Timely, Appointments for Triage) clinic was initiated. Eligibility criteria for this clinic was identified and the scope of this role was defined and the clinic commenced in July 2021.

The hypothesis was that implementation of a STAT clinic would assist with: client needs being definitively identified, program flow, clinical support for team leaders, minimisation of within episode of care referrals being generated and the potential for some client’s needs to be fully addressed within the clinic and therefore not requiring a full CRC episode of care.

Data was collected from July 2021 to February 2022. 37 clients were seen for 1-3 appointments. 40% did not require additional input following their STAT clinic input. Intervention was provided within all STAT clinic appointments. 100% of clients surveyed were satisfied with their experience. The CRC neurological stream waiting list returned to a manageable program workload.