$105k for asthma education packages

The project aims to educate health professionals and patients/carers regarding the use of ambulances for acute asthma in rural and remote areas and improve patients and health professionals understanding of the ‘000’ processes and the information the caller will be asked for when calling for ambulance assistance.

The project titled ‘Ambulances for Asthma: Education Programs for Health Professionals and Their Patients in Rural and Remote Areas’, will be presented as a multimedia package and will be developed with support from the Monash University Multimedia Development Unit.

Project leader Ms Leanne Sheen said the initiative would initially focus on rural areas of Victoria including Gippsland, Mildura and the Ottway and Eastern Ranges.

“The research team has previously conducted two studies funded by the Department of Health and Ageing into the use of ambulances for asthma in rural areas. According to Lee, these studies revealed that there were several barriers to ambulance use for asthma at a community level.

“People in rural areas still drove themselves to hospital with severe asthma instead of using ambulances.

“Some of the reasons for this included a distrust of the ‘000’ system, concerns that the paramedics would be unable to locate their rural property, underestimating asthma severity and not considering asthma as warranting ambulance paramedic assistance,” she explained.

In addition, some health professionals did not tell their patients to use ambulance services if they needed them, and did not know what an ambulance paramedic could do for a patient with asthma. An investigation into those patients who did call ‘000’ found that ambulance paramedic care for asthma was excellent. 

The development of these education packages were recommendations from these first two projects. “It is very exciting to see such tangible outcomes resulting from research,” Ms Sheen said.