CENA Vic Branch Update to members (November 2006)
CENA Vic Branch has been quite busy over the last few months. As members may be aware the 6th International Conference for Emergency Nursing (ICEN) will be held in Melbourne in 2007. The Vic Branch committee has the responsibility for organizing this important International conference.

So far we have created a conference committee. This committee has been meeting regularly and working with our conference organizer, Conference Design to find an appropriate venue and dates. The 6th ICEN will be held at Telstra Dome, on 11-13 October 2007, this week being Emergency Nurses week, it will be a good time to come and celebrate being an Emergency nurse. The theme for 6th ICEN is "Future Directions, Future Challenges… Beyond Tomorrow". This is an opportunity to take stock of the environment we work in, examine how we practice, consider some of the achievements of emergency nurses and look to the future challenges of our profession. With the task of organising this conference many of the committee took the opportunity to go to the National Conference in Tasmania. We looked at many aspects of this conference with a different view and brought many great ideas back. The Vic Branch would like to congratulate the Tassie branch and Conference Design on a fabulous and successful Conference.

So what else has been happening? Firstly at the National Conference Julie Considine from Northern Hospital won the Emergency Nurse of the Year Award. Julie was also successful in being awarded the Ben Morley Scholarship, a joint scholarship between CENA and Tuta Health care. We wish to congratulate Julie on her achievements.

Again the DHS has acknowledged CENA as the professional body for Emergency Nurses, by inviting us to join another sub committee of the Emergency Access Reference Committee, (EARC), the Emergency Department Workforce Survey Project. The objectives of the Project will be to:

• produce a staffing profile for each of the 21 metropolitan and five regional emergency departments
• benchmark staffing in the 21 metropolitan and five regional emergency departments against activity including acuity and volume
• match human resources against service acuity levels.

The other sub committees of the EARC have also been working hard. The Waiting Room/Sub Audit Committee has finished for the present. Most waiting rooms now have improved signage and the implementation of Red Cross volunteers in the ED waiting rooms have been some of the results of this project.

Mental health subcommittee has met several times the majority of the discussion was around guidelines for Mental Health patients. It is around how they should be treated, what we should provide for them, facilities required within ED etc. These will be worked on over the next few months. An important statistic was that presentations continue to increase across the board.

Ambulance interface sub committee is looking at existing systems operating between ambulances and the EDs. The project will identify options to improve communication between ambulance and ED’s, management of capacity and peak demand in ED’s and the management of patient distribution between hospitals.

Over the last few months the Vic Branch committee has completed our State strategic Plan which has been sent off to CENA national office. Apart from the conference being a major activity another challenge for us and all emergency nurses is to increase CENA membership. Our organisation is only as strong as our members and the more members we have the more effect we may have on our profession. To this end we have produced a recruitment poster. This poster should be arriving in your EDs in sometime in December. Please make sure that it is in a visible area and encourage your colleagues to think about joining their relevant emergency professional organisation.

Another important feature for Vic members has been the introduction of ‘Items of interest’ being emailed to members on a monthly basis. We hope to send out items of interest whether it be attachments such the primary and secondary survey charts that you can print off, or interesting web sites for you to access. If anyone has come across something that may be of interest to your emergency colleagues please email us and we can distribute it in this way.

We are running a study day in November. This study day on the 16 November is a Clinical update for emergency nurses. Is your practice Best Practice? It is a one day program covering key topics in emergency care with an evidence based focus. Contact CENA national for details at national@cena.org.au

We recently held a successful Nurse Unit Manager Forum where both Belinda Moyse from the DHS and Lisa Fitzpatrick from ANF were guest speakers. This is a great opportunity for NUMs to get together and discuss unique features of their jobs with others who have similar issues.

We will keep you posted over the next few months as to the progress of the Conference and any other items of interest to our members. We would encourage any queries from members at any time.