Michelle Paton, Clinical Lead Physiotherapist for Critical Care and Surgical Services, was recently approached by the Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) to develop an online training course for NSW Health to upskill physiotherapists to meet the challenges of COVID-19.
Within a week, she and her co-developer Peter Thomas from Royal Brisbane were presenting a Virtual ICU training course to 360 NSW physiotherapists, which has now been viewed by more than 2,200 clinicians from across Australia and internationally across 15 countries.
The course revises existing knowledge for physiotherapists who have not had recent Intensive Care exposure in the skills to assess the physiotherapy needs of critical care patients, maximise the benefit of ventilation, optimise positioning and facilitate early rehabilitation and recovery.
The skills and knowledge of critical care physiotherapists have been utilised internationally to support the management of COVID patients when the healthcare system has been overwhelmed and could be called on in Australia in if we do not continue to ‘flatten the curve.’
Michelle is a recognised clinical expert and previous APA course developer.
She says the critical care team worked well together to ensure all staff were well prepared.
Congratulations Michelle on your amazing job in supporting the Monash Health clinician upskilling and surge training!
Michelle is one of the faces of the Monash Health Foundation community fundraising appeal in support of research into treatments for COVID-19. You can support the campaign at www.monashhealthappeal.org