Caboolture Hospital offers local GPs new options for advice and resources

The Caboolture Hospital Paediatric Department is passionate about quality care in a timely manner. Due to significant demands on the outpatient service, the new Director of Paediatrics at Caboolture Hospital, Dr Fred Nagel, would like to support local GPs to ensure sufficient information is provided in referrals and to ensure patients have received optimal care in the community prior to referral. It is hoped this will facilitate increased availability of outpatient appointments.

Several resources are available to help support GPs manage paediatric patients in primary care and include:

• GP Smart Referrals provides essential information paediatricians need to triage referrals. This information can also be found in the paediatrics referral guidelines (Management and referral guidelines | Children’s Health Queensland).
• Localised Health Pathways* for paediatric conditions to help guide management and indicate when referral is recommended (e.g. Plagiocephaly, Asthma, Constipation, Enuresis).
• Queensland Children’s Hospital statewide guidelines for acute paediatric ED presentations as well as conditions such as constipation, asthma and wheeze.
• If the GP has specialist questions about patient care they can call Caboolture Hospital Switch on 07 5433 8888 and request to speak to the on-call paediatric registrar or consultant especially if this may prevent the need for admission or referral to outpatients.
  

* Contact Brisbane North PHN on 07 3630 7300 for Health Pathways login details