New research is set to improve childhood respiratory treatment and reduce unnecessary medical transfers across 18 rural and remote health centres throughout north and far north Queensland.
PARIS on Country is a new study being launched by Queensland’s world-leading Paediatric Acute Respiratory Intervention Studies (PARIS) program.
It is led by chief investigator Dr Donna Franklin and aims to halve the number of children being transferred away to city hospitals.
“Based on the evidence from two world first clinical trials — PARIS I and II — we now understand when it is best to place an infant or child on nasal high flow therapy and when to use standard oxygen as a first line oxygen therapy,” said Dr Franklin, who is a researcher at Gold Coast University Hospital, Menzies Health Institute, Griffith University and James Cook University.
Donna is also a member of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT) group.
High-flow oxygen therapy, which provides increased oxygen to patients via a nasal cannula, is rarely available in remote areas and 50 per cent of patients are transferred to city hospitals for a higher level of care than they may actually need.
“This causes emotional stress for children and families, unnecessary load on emergency departments and huge transfer costs for the state,” Dr Franklin said.
“Paris on Country will develop and implement a respiratory care training package to help rural and remote clinicians decide when to escalate treatment and when to seek specialist advice via telehealth.
“By providing local clinicians with the tools, education and information they need, we hope to see a positive change for these sick children.”
The resource and training pack is based on evidence from the world first PARIS trials, which were led by Dr Andreas Schibler, a researcher at Queensland’s Wesley Research Institute and a world leader in paediatric acute respiratory medicine and intensive care.
A pilot study is currently running successfully in three remote Queensland hospitals, including Weipa, Thursday Island and Cooktown, under PhD Candidate and Lead Investigator Sally West from James Cook University.
“This is a service parents in remote communities are desperate to see introduced,“ Ms West said.
“Having a child with breathing difficulties is stressful, but needing to transfer them away from country can be devastating, particularly for Indigenous families.”
The pilot study is now being expanded to 18 rural and remote hospitals across the Torres and Cape, Townsville, north west and Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Services.
The project is a collaboration between Gold Coast University Hospital, Wesley Research Institute, James Cook University and Griffith University.
FACTS
* Acute respiratory illnesses, for example bronchiolitis, asthma and pneumonia, are the most frequent cause of hospitalisation in children and 28 per cent of intensive care admissions.
* Mortality rates from acute respiratory failure can be up to 20pc in under-resourced communities – three to four times higher for Indigenous than non-Indigenous Australians.
* In Far North Queensland, 30 to 50pc of children with acute respiratory failure are transferred to hospitals in Cairns or Townsville (compared with only nine to 12 per cent in south east Queensland).
* New PARIS on Country project aims to reduce these transfers by half.
