Annual Report 2010 - ACEM

21
ACEM AR 2010
COuNCil COMMiTTEE
REPORTs continued
Emergency Medicine Clinical
Trials Group Subcommittee
Paul Middleton took over the chair of
the EMCTG at the April 2010 meeting,
following ratification at the March 2010
Council meeting.
Members had previously emphasised
that the original purpose behind the
establishment of the EMCTG, as a
subcommittee of the scientific Committee,
was to set up collaborative clinical
research in emergency medicine under
the auspices of the College and to
promote research in emergency medicine.
The EMCTG membership comprises
researchers with a wide breadth of
experience in the design, execution and
processes involved in clinical trial research,
and as such can provide expert input into
the development of other people’s ideas,
and can provide a process for seeking
College endorsement for clinical trials.
The EMCTG has agreed that the priorities
of the subcommittee should therefore be
education, promotion and organisation.
The focus will be to foster research and
provide the training necessary to set
up research projects, particularly the
development of large, collaborative projects.
The EMCTG terms of reference do not
require all projects to be conducted by
subcommittee members, therefore it is
planned to encourage research and to
train others to conduct projects. it is also
planned to seek allocated time on the
agenda of each scientific meeting to provide
seminars for College members on clinical
trial methodologies.
The EMCTG is currently considering a
multi-centre intervention trial targeting
pain management.
Paul Middleton, Chair
Standards Committee
The standards Committee has been active
throughout 2010. Following on from
the ground work in 2009, the committee
has had an extensive workload with
reviews of existing policies, statements
and guidelines according to the program
developed in 2009. The year has seen a
number of personnel changes at College
headquarters, which has slowed some
of the workload completion. Now that
this situation has stabilised, a number of
documents have been reviewed, updated
and finalised.A complete list of the
updated policies, guidelines and statements
can be found on the College website.
Committee members can access agendas
and minutes on the website.
New policies, statements and guidelines
in development address areas such as the
roles of Nurse Practitioners in emergency
departments and implications of proposed
new performance indicators following
the new COAG agreement.A complete
revision and restructure of the Emergency
Departments Role Delineation statement
has been undertaken.
To a large extent, the committee and
subcommittees have achieved the program
set in 2009. subcommittees have been
working tirelessly to complete their
workload for this year. Please see the
individual subcommittee reports for
progress during 2010.
Policies, guidelines and statements are
reviewed on a five year cycle. in addition
to this, it is intended to review the full list
of documents next year with regard to
the numbering, identification and
tracking systems to further enhance
document control.
As Chair, i would like to thank the
members of the standards Committee
for some outstanding work this year
and their contributions to the workload
for 2010. Additionally, the Chairs and
members of the subcommittees are to be
congratulated on their achievements and
work throughout the year. Their work
and contributions are invaluable to the
success of the standards Committee.
Chris May, Chair
Emergency Department
Ultrasound Subcommittee
The ED ultrasound subcommittee
continues to work to improve ultrasound
education and credentialing.The
international conference on point of
care ultrasound,WiNFOCus 2009, was
held in sydney in september as a satellite
conference to the ‘World Federation
for ultrasound in Medicine and Biology’
international meeting. Most of the
members of the organising committee are
members of ACEM, and it was pleasing to
see the demonstration of the high level of
expertise in emergency ultrasound that
exists within the College standing equal
to international experts.The residual
profit from the conference will be used to
create the ACEM WiNFOCus ultrasound
Bursary, to support emergency ultrasound
research and development.Additionally,
in recognition of this success and the
growing role of ultrasound for non-imaging
specialists, the Australasian society for
ultrasound in Medicine is considering
hosting regular sections or satellite
meetings for clinicians during its annual
scientific meeting.
Work has continued with Alana Killen,
the College Director of Education, to
create a web based education resource
for emergency ultrasound. special thanks
are extended to Justin Bowra, who has
contributed much of this material.
A survey of the current state of
emergency ultrasound in Australasia has
recently been published by Nagaraj, Chu
and Dinh in Emergency Medicine Australasia,