Since October last year, our Early COVID Therapies clinic has provided over 600 treatments to those in our community affected by COVID-19.
From Friday July 1, and as part of our continuous improvement approach, we will adopt a new model of care for our Early COVID Therapies clinic.
Under the new model, the clinic will:
- Remove GP and self-referrals into the clinic
- Redirect oral therapies to GPs or GP Respiratory Clinics
- Prioritise all patients on our Medium COVID-19 Pathway for assessment and review, and provide them with a Pharmacy review upfront
- Uplift Pharmacy to provide additional support to our medical and nursing team
- Keep Remdesivir available for high-risk (haematology, transplant patients) via internal referral
Instead of self-referrals, high-risk patients will contact their specialty nurse or treating doctors when they test positive for COVID-19. Our treating unit doctors will assess for and prescribe antivirals (Nirmatrelvir/Ritonavir, Remdesivir and Molnupiravir, which can be dispensed from the Monash Pharmacy or through a community pharmacy.
By simplifying the referral process to internal and COVID Medium Pathway referrals only, we are looking to increase the number of patients we can treat at our satellite clinic.
A new internal online referral system for Monash Health physicians/registrars and our Emergency Departments to refer patients for Remdesivir to our clinic will be available via our Early COVID-19 treatments webpage.
More information
We’re running education sessions with Units to ensure everyone feels comfortable with the new processes.
A new cheat sheet and workflow for our Early COVID Therapies Clinic is now available for our clinicians.
If you have any questions, please contact Lydia Upjohn, Early COVID Therapies Lead, Monash Health HITH.
Approved by Andrew Block