Western Health is committed to taking all possible measures to protect our patients, staff, volunteers and visitors as we face the challenge of COVID-19.
We are introducing regular screening of all inpatients for the emergence of new COVID-19 symptoms to indicate if testing and isolation may be required.
This new requirement is to enhance our ability to rapidly identify and manage any patient who may be asymptomatic on admission, but then develops any COVID-19 symptoms during their hospital stay. These patients pose a risk to the safety of our staff and other patients, so COVID-19 risk screening has now been included as a new component of the Comprehensive Care risk screening process.
The new COVID-19 screens (adult and paediatric/neonatal) are now live in the EMR, and must be undertaken at least once every shift, or upon the development of any COVID-19 symptoms.
The assessment is very brief, and if the response to any question is ‘yes’, please request a medical review to assess for whether COVID 19 testing is indicated.
Screen shots of the Paediatric and Neonatal tool can be viewed below. The adult tool is similar.
Please note the Paediatric and Neonatal tool has the addition of ‘Unable to assess’ in the drop down box.