ANNOUNCEMENT

FORMATION OF

THE EMERGENCY NURSES SOCIETY OF SOUTH AFRICA (ENSSA)

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA November 25, 2009

We are proud to announce the formation of the first Emergency Nurses society in South Africa. This society was established during the 2^nd EMSSA “Emergency Medicine in the Developing World” Conference, held from 24-26 November, 2009, at the Cape Town International Conference Centre. This was made possible due to the efforts of a number of dedicated emergency nurses throughout South Africa, as well as the considerable support of the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa (EMSSA).

ENSSA has been established as a separate organisation under the auspices of the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa, and it will strive to develop and promote emergency nursing in South Africa. The aim of ENSSA is to promote the advancement of emergency nursing in South Africa through leadership, education, collaboration and practice development and research.

ENSSA is the first emergency nurses organisation in South Africa and it will accept as members any nurses (registered or enrolled with the South African Nursing Council) who are involved in emergency care. Nurses from outside South Africa are also welcome to join the organisation. Membership of ENSSA can be attained through joining the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa.

The current ENSSA Executive Committee consists of 6 people who will be responsible for the development of this society over the next two years.

The Interim Executive Committee is:

Chair – Petra Brysiewicz

Vice Chair –Tanya Heyns

Secretary – Jean Augustyn

Officers – Gayle Partridge, Celia Embleton & Jasmin Gassiep (Co-opted member)

We welcome any suggestions to assist us in the development of this organization, and we look forward to your active membership in the months and years to come. Please access our website via the Emergency Medicine Society of South Africa website at www.emssa.org.za to find additional details as well as information regarding how to join this exciting organisation!

Cape Town International Convention Centre

1. ATTENDANCE LIST

2. PPT (view presentation here)

SJ gave an overview via power point.

This power point is attached to these minutes (SJ to please distribute).

There has been a contribution of 3 million dollars from the Abbott fund.

The Emergency Department has hoping as four resus beds and 10 treatment rooms with appropriate support areas and a computerized record system.

There will be extensive bedside testing.

A SWOT analysis has been undertaken.

Strengths

• There are existing specialty support structures in place
• There is a Head of Department in place
• There is funding available
• There is government support at Ministerial level
• The Head of Department is a very respected anaesthetist and second doctor in the department is a trauma specialist
• Fourteen medical officers are being hired for the project
• These doctors can rotate through UCT / Wits for two or three months experience each

Weaknesses

• There is no triage system
• There is no training
• There are no logistics
• There are no protocols etc, etc

Opportunities

• There is an opportunity to improve outcomes clinically to undertake academic and research projects to raise public awareness
• To address the burden of disease and to put residency training in place

Threats

• It’s the only Emergency Department in the City of 4m; this may impact on its ability to change things
• Staff turn-over
• Inter-departmental conflicts
• Recurrent funding from Abbott
• Ownership and buy-in by government

3. STRATEGY

The strategy for Tanzania is to develop Emergency Care using local resources.

That needs be an International Emergency Medicine fellowship and public private partnership.

An ED registry would also be important to drive information.

The needs includes

a)     Leadership

To provide the African perspective and develop networks

Provide healthcare management training and develop an Emergency Medicine Society

b)     Logistics

To produce reliable procurement and re supplying maintenance systems

To standardise essential equipment list

To buy best practises for cell phone communication and best practises for internet access To build three to four new Emergency Departments.

It was also noted that WHO checklist approach would be ideal for this sort of development.

c)     Operations

Sharing of resources and protocols an assistance forum will helpful

d)     Administration

e)     Finance

Out of budget and resource constrain setting and options for other revenue streams.

f)      Planning

Strategic plan for Emergency Medicine Development in Africa and information clearing as for Emergency Medicine Department in Africa

g)     Training

A Hybrid programme with Tanzania curriculum co-ordination, grandfathering processes, maximizing education resources’ and faculty sharing.

h)     Research

Database options and grant options

There is clearly a need to add EMS into this mix too and there is discussion around to how best advised to development. College of Emergency Medicine South Africa offered to run the DIPPEC in Tanzania only if there was sufficient interest. Ultrasound training can be run as a satellite from Cape Town. LW will provide the IFEM undergraduate curriculum to SJ.

VK may have some funding options. She has been involved in a Canadian driven project in another part of Tanzania and it became clear following the meeting that there were other project ongoing which just needed co-ordinated better.

4. PLAN

The plan going forward was agreed on as follow:

a)     To link into the newly formed African Federation of Emergency Medicine as the engine for support and co-ordination resources.

b)     To develop a formal list of emergency care needs using the existing 30 part data collection tool (TM to provide).

c)     To develop a list of international emergency medicine resources that currently exist for these needs.

d)     To develop possible partners

e)     To develop a list of possible funding

f) To develop a final plan based on this

All were thanked for attending and LW will develop a distribution list and hope to generate ongoing interest and involvement.

Cape Town International Convention Centre

1. ATTENDANCE

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Everyone was welcomed to the meeting.

The description point was around the need for a journal, if there was a need the logistics of the journal in terms of online vs print, Medline indexing and so on, and the composition of editorial board / peer review process.

2. DISCUSSION

• There was clearly agreed need for a journal.
• This must be Africa centric
• It must be the same standard of other journals but have in it aims and objectives to increase the access to publication for the African Emergency Care practitioners.
• It must be African focused and relevant.
• It must be period.

Everyone agreed it must be medline indexed and listed with appropriate organizations for funding through universities such as the (South African Department of Education).

There was a lot of discussion around internet verses print. Most people felt that internet is the right way to go and the journal task team will have to look at this.

The international forum of journal editors may help to build journal editorial capacity. They may also be able to provide some advice on how to go to setting up the journal.

There may be a need to publish work at a lower standard initially. Use of a peer and mentor system to hold the hands of authors and develop a co-author network would also be really helpful. Tim Coats’ course may be a vehicle for improving writing skills. It was also suggested that the journal can publish a series of commission articles to help people write. More details provided later.

Tim Coats was recently involved in a launch of Scandinavian journal. It has been directed at the community of Emergency Care to guide the conversation in emergency care in that area that includes critical appraisal, applying evidence, network building and international development articles. This would be very helpful in our settings. We would need to start with a higher proportion of commissioned articles initially.

Access and funding will be a real issue and it wasn’t rely clear how to do that other then this should be initially open access to try and drive leadership. Where internet access is poor printed special editions on certain topics may well help to get the message out on this.

It was accepted that it is going to take 5 years or so to look how we really want it to look. There was discussion that a board when establish should have representation from each of the major countries. Following discussions around the African Federation of Emergency Medicine it was felt that actually housing the journal under the federation would be most sensible way to ensure representivity and ease of access.

3. PLAN GOING FORWARD

Under AFEM a task team has been established one of the functions is of which to look at the issue of a journal.  The task team is actually looking at services so may need a sub-committee with co-opted members from outside to address all of the important points about the journal.

The task team should look at funding options, internet verses print options, how to set up an editorial board, how to set up a advisory committee and how more sort of commission articles would be the best place to start. Suggested things include writing articles, reading articles,

International emergency medicine development, how to take overseas literature and how to implement it in a resource constrain setting and scans of other journal articles such as the EMJ Sophia system.