Dial-a-Dizzy

Dizziness accounts for approximately four per cent of chief complaints to the emergency departments in Queensland’s public hospitals. Patients who present with dizziness usually require specialist tests to determine the cause. When the cause is unclear patients living in rural or remote regions of Queensland may need to travel long distances to a tertiary hospital for further testing, taking patients away from family and support networks and increasing costs on the public health system.

To ensure patients who present with dizzy symptoms at rural or remote emergency departments are streamed to the most appropriate care pathway to treat vestibular conditions, Metro South Health piloted “The Dial-a-Dizzy project”. Dial-a-Dizzy partners the integrated ear, nose and throat (ENT) vestibular team based at Logan Hospital with rural and remote emergency departments and aims to function as a telehealth diagnostic advisory hotline to guide clinicians through the management of emergent vertigo. Vesticam infra-red video goggles have also been placed in five remote emergency departments, as well as an e-consult platform to request advice and upload video images captured with the Vesticam goggles.