The Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH) established a statewide Paediatric Physiotherapy Continence Service with primary (first contact) and secondary (referred after medical review) model of care (MOC) to meet the needs of children with bladder, bowel and/or pelvic floor dysfunction (BBPFD). This service utilises multiple digital technologies to provide family-centred care directly to their home. Telehealth was also used to establish a regional site in Townsville Hospital and Health Service (HHS) and provide clinical supervision to staff. A REDCap database was created, and for the first time, approval was received for families to directly enter their patient reported outcome measures (PROM) data, saving clinical time and possible data input errors. To enable high-level care across the state a multiple resource was developed for clinicians inclusive of a Project ECHO (an innovative inter-professional education and case-base learning model) series, podcasts and webinars, with positive feedback from the local and international allied health and medical specialists who attended.
Flushed! A statewide physiotherapy service for paediatric incontinence
Initiative Type
Model of Care
Status
Deliver
Added
24 August 2021
Last updated
26 February 2024
Summary
Key dates
Jul 2019
Implementation sites
Queensland Children's Hospital, Townsville University Hospital
Partnerships
General Practitioners, TUH Physiotherapy and General Paediatric services as well as QCH General Paediatrics, Gastroenterology, PSUB and Nephrology teams
Aim
Provide sustainable public paediatric physiotherapy continence services and evaluate the primary and secondary contact MOC with patient reported outcome measures.
Benefits
This initiative demonstrated patient-centred care by improving access, reducing wait times, and improving outcomes with high levels of referrer satisfaction; and developed clinician capability. This study will provide evidence for benchmarking across other paediatric healthcare centres and information that may assist other paediatric health services in their decision to implement similar service models in their hospitals.
Background
It is not common knowledge that 5 – 12% of children in Australia have urinary incontinence and up to 25% suffer from constipation.