NZ HITH Seminar November 2007
Submitted by Philippa Carson, Hospital to Community Nurse Specialist, MidCentral DHB. Originally printed in December 2007 IVNNZ Inc. Newsletter
On November 8th 2007 at Palmerston North Hospital the inaugural HITH seminar was presented by MidCentral Health and Baxter Healthcare with a programme based on initial expressions of interest. It was a fabulous day of information sharing and oodles of networking occurred amongst the 90 delegates from around NZ.
Keynote speaker Lisa Demos, Senior Research Scientist for Ambulatory Care Australia (ACA) presented what she called a sprint around HITH internationally. Lisa included information from USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, Israel, Cuba, and France. She highlighted the differences between the services in each country from the terminology used to describe them to conditions treated, types of medications and vascular access devices used. Lisa also described a variety of delivery models from attending medical centres to home visits with nurse or doctor administration to patient and family administration. It seems as for New Zealand, worldwide there are limited resources available for sharing HITH specific information and experience.
Mark Beale, Infectious Diseases Physician at MidCentral Health, is a recent arrival to NZ. He presented his experience of HITH in South Africa. Mark facilitated a model of HITH treatment for a few patients with endocarditis and encouraged colleagues to initiate similar services. Unfortunately due to the challenges a developing country presents such as nil funding streams, absent community nursing services, and much of the population without electricity, running water, phone and transport HITH has not been successful.
In order to become familiar with NZ services delegates from Northland, Waikato, Taranaki, Hutt Valley, Nelson Marlborough, and Southland DHBs presented an outline of their programmes. This emphasised the value of individual service experience and the importance of sharing their knowledge to assist the growth of others. Using a case study approach the MidCentral team including Rudyard Yap, Lorraine Welman and Philippa Carson highlighted their individual roles of Infectious Diseases Physician, Pharmacist, HITH nurse and how they work together for the benefit of patients. Vigorous applause was given to a MidCentral Health patient and District Nurse Judy Hogg as their presentation left the audience with no doubt about the benefits of HITH and the nurse-patient partnership.
Two presentations stood out as provoking many questions and ongoing discussion. These were from Tim Blackmore, Infectious Diseases Physician for Capital & Coast and Grant McRae, Pharmacist at MidCentral Health. Tim considered antibiotic use in the community including the role of oral and IV while Grant provided information about the kinetics and dynamics of antibiotics.
Lisa Demos returned in the afternoon to outline the journey and the tremendous work of ACA (and prior HITH organisation) thus far. This lead the seminar into an open forum to discuss the formation of a NZ HITH group to facilitate the formal networking and development of services. Delegates agreed to a multidisciplinary special interest group that would commence by creating an email network and given the success of the day, to plan a second seminar next year. Philippa Carson, Hospital to Community Nurse at MidCentral Health is leading the group formation. If you would like to know more or become a member contact Philippa at HITH@midcentraldhb.govt.nz.