Guidelines Protocols Courses
Tools Conference Presentations and Abstracts Educational Events / meetings

Please note ARNS does not endorse the content of any of these tools, but hopes that they will provide a useful resource for its members.

Buyers' guide to spirometers
The Australian Nurses’ Guide to the Insertion and Removal of Chest Tubes and Management of Chest Drain in Adults
BTS Smoking Cessation PowerPoint
Bristol COPD Knowledge Questionnaire, (BCKQ)

 

You may be interested in a buyers' guide to spirometers just published by NHS PASA's Centre for Evidence-based Purchasing (CEP).
 
The guide describes all of the things to consider when choosing which spirometer to buy or use including operational considerations, performance, economic and purchasing information. It includes comparative tables on all of the products currently on the market. The guide should enable the NHS to make an informed decision and choose a product that best meets their needs.

The guide is referenced in the DH Good Practice Guide to Transforming Respiratory and Sleep Diagnostics Services and will support delivery of the DH clinical strategy on COPD when published.

The Centre for Evidence-based Purchasing (CEP) generates, gathers and assesses evidence on medical products and related services to encourage informed decision-making around the purchase and choice of products used in the NHS. They are funded by the Dept of Health.

You can sign up for notification of publications, suggest new projects and view their work programme at www.pasa.nhs.uk/cep

The Australian Nurses’ Guide to the Insertion and Removal of Chest Tubes and Management of Chest Drain in Adults
(Endorsed by and  launched at the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand meeting in Auckland in March 2007)

This is now available to colleagues on line via the link on the home page of  The Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand website: http://www.thoracic.org.au/

Kevin Clark, Clinical Nurse Consultant in Brisbane and regular visitor to the ARNS Website has kindly alerted us to the information on this link and writes:
"We have been lucky enough to have a training simulator developed by an anaesthetist in Sydney that has been revised according to our specifications. The mannequin "breathes " spontaneously so the drain can bubble to varying degrees and cough can be simulated and really creates a realistic environment to run scenarios. It also has a small bore catheter and a large bore catheter pre-inserted on each side of the chest which can be attached to a chest drain and still has the ribspaces for insertion training as in Annie 1. The revised Annie 2 costs AUS$2,800, but is well worth the extra in my opinion. brochure
There are also training manuals to go with the simulator. These deal with skills training, risk assessment and management. The nursing one is completed and the doctors one is several months away from completion. Ideally, the on-line education should be followed by hands on training with the mannequin.
We have developed and trialed audit tools for insertion, management and removal of chest drains which are published and generally available on the TSANZ website.
I have attached the PPT presentation I delivered when we launched the training resource at TSANZ back in March, which might give ARNS members some context to the combination of e-learning and simulation training. I have also attached an article in the "Coronial Communique - Connecting Clinicians with Coroners" See page 3 for info that supports why this training has been developed for medical and nursing staff"

BTS Smoking Cessation PowerPoint

The BTS Tobacco Committee have produced a set of PowerPoint slides for use in educating all healthcare professionals about why and how to discuss with patients the benefits of giving up smoking. This tool comes with speaker notes so that even those with little knowledge can use the slides effectively and there are a large and varied selection of slides so that they can be used as required for different situations.

Bristol COPD Knowledge Questionnaire, (BCKQ)

This is a questionnaire designed to test knowledge of disease in COPD patients. It has been validated, its sensitivity confirmed and it was recently published in Chronic Respiratory Disease. (White R, Walker P, Roberts S, Kalisky S, White P. (2006) Chronic Respiratory Disease 3:123-131)

Dr White is keen to publicise it to those who are involved in teaching COPD patients. Unlike some questionnaires there is no licence fee to use it, and you are free to download it for your own use.