Old ECSSA News

16 December 2011

After several months of design and development, the new ECSSA website has finally gone live. Although you will notice a vast difference from the previous temporary site (a "placeholder"after the conference in September 2011), we do not intend for the new site to remain static for long periods.

The ECCSA website will now become the primary channel through which the Society communicates with its members and others with an interest in emergency care. Important information about ECSSA events, news and conferences will be posted here and updated regularly. Additionally, access to the Society's quarterly journal Sanguine will be provided via this site. Sanguine is currently accessible to anyone on this site and via ISSUU. However, this will change in the new year with only ECSSA members having access. Keep checking on the Sanguine page of this website later in 2012 for more information.

Another noteworthy plan in place for 2012 is the rollout of an on-line CPD questionaire system. The idea is that in each issue of Sanguine there will be a multiple-choice questionnaire based upon one or more of the articles in the same issue. ECSSA members will be able to log in to the ECSSA website with a membership number and password and access this questionnaire online. Once answers have been provided, the CPD system will calculate a mark and based upon a pre-determined cutoff (e.g. 70%) a a number of CPD points will be awarded and an online certificate in PDF format will be available for download or printing. As you can well imagine, such a system is quite complicated and will take a while to implement, test and release. However this is one of the Society's main objectives for 2012 and we are serious about rolling it out as soon as possible. This service will only be available for ECSSA members.

16 December 2011

The reporting of all pre-hospital rapid sequence intubation (RSI) attempts performed by Emergency Care Practitioners (ECPs) is a requirement set out by the Professional Board for Emergency Care (PBEC) at the Health Professions Council of SA. According to this requirement, a record of all RSI attempts must be stored in a National RSI Registry.

Although such a reporting system can, and has, been implemented on a "fax and paper" basis, the need has been identified for a more easily accessible and usable system, and one that is based upon a standard set of variables describing each RSI event. The PBEC will be releasing such a system for use by ECPs early in 2012. The National RSI Registry will be available online and will offer a secure means of uploading and storing RSI-related data. A core dataset has been determined, based mainly upon the US National Association of EMS Physicians standardised reporting of airway interventions dataset. ECPs can either enter their RSI data directly into the Registry online, or alternatively a downloadable RSI form can be used to write down the data at the point-of-care. This can then be entered online later, at a convenient time.

A procedure has been formulated that allows for access to the accumulated RSI data by organisations wishing to audit this as part of a clinical governance programme (this naturally only applies to ECPs within their own clinical governance programme). Additionally, a mechanism will exist for researchers to access accumualted RSI data provided this is done within the framework of an academically and ethically approved research proposal. In all cases, permissions for access will be managed by the PBEC and will be subject to the strictest patient and practitioner confidentiality.

The PBEC has made it clear that assessment of the quality of pre-hospital RSI is essential for any emergency service employing ECPs who perform this procedure. The only way that this can be done is to have access to valid and reliable data on each RSI event. The National RSI Registry is a first for South Africa and will no doubt be instrumental in contributing towards enhanced patient safety and our ability to determine the effectiveness of this intervention.

29 February 2012

Software development of the RSI registry has been completed. Final implementation of the registry and notification of its terms and conditions of use will be subject to the HPCSA's Professional Board for Emergency Care.

20 April 2012

In order to grow ECSSA membership and enable a more coherent "grass roots" presence of the Society, we will be embarking on a process of establishing Chapters, beginning in the second half of 2012.

A Chapter is a a sub-unit of the Society's structure which exists at a local or regional level, representing members in a well-defined geographic area. We believe that for the Society to have relevance and meaning to its members on a day-to-day basis there must be some kind of local or regional cohesion and interest, rather than just a Board of Directors and members who end up wondering what ECSSA does for them. The establishment of Chapters is a an important way of getting smaller groups of professionals to "own" ECSSA in their region and drive ECSSA-related activities in the direction that they choose (subject to the Society's Constitution and policies).

Naturally, Chapters require structure and accountability otherwise they will probably be short-lived. We are currently in the final stages of writing a policy on the establishment and administration of ECSSA Chapters that will clearly set out how Chapters are established and how they are run. In doing this, we believe that we have balanced the need for accountability (which all members have a right to expect from ECSSA) with the need for flexibility.

So watch this space over the next few months. We will be communicating these details on the website and directly to members. We would like to identify interested people (who will have to be ECSSA members) to establish and drive Chapters in the larger centres (such as Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town and Bloemfontein for example) by the end of September 2012.