Who we are

Nursing

Emergency nurses must be able to prioritise patient care and provide accurate assessment and effective ongoing management for a diverse range of patient populations. 

Nursing practice in the ED may range from life saving interventions to providing health promotion and injury prevention information. 

Each department has a Nurse Unit Manager who works collaboratively with the Director of Emergency Medicine to ensure the service provided by the departments is second to none. 

The clinical nurse education teams perform a vast array of roles from facilitating the clinical development year nurses to assisting post graduate students successfully negotiate their clinical hurdles.  Southern Health emergency encourages advanced practice i.e. nurse initiated analgesia, and supports our nurses who wish to become nurse practitioners.

Medical

We train more emergency medicine doctors than any other Australasian health service provider.  The senior medical staff at all sites participate in 'on the floor' supervision and didactic teaching.  The success of our program is demonstrated by the high marks achieved in all levels of the examination program of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, which has accredited all three departments for training.

All our senior medical staff are experienced emergency medicine practitioners.  They are trained to deal with any critical emergency from the youngest paediatric patient to the most senior members of the community.

Care coordination and allied health

Each department has a dedicated team of allied health specialists that work within care coordination of discipline specific roles that have expertise in the care of emergency patients.  These team members assess and identify the needs of patients who may be admitted or discharged, providing linkages back to the community for safe care.

Clerical staff and administrative staff

Our clerical staff are health information professionals who ensure our processes in data collection are of the highest quality and provide our clinical staff with information that is necessary to promote best practice and quality care for our patients.  Our administrative staff support our departments 365 days of the year.

Research

Southern Health emergency is developing an academic and research program with close links to Monash University.  Recent appointments have included a Professor of Emergency Medicine and Professor of Emergency Medicine Research, with accompanying research assistant support.  At any one time there are in excess of a dozen research projects being undertaken across the three sites.