NSW Health Pathol­o­gy will con­tin­ue to sup­port the Coota­mundra com­mu­ni­ty with access to high qual­i­ty time­ly pathol­o­gy ser­vices. There will be no change to our blood col­lec­tion ser­vice for patients.

The avail­abil­i­ty of new Point of Care Test­ing tech­nol­o­gy means NSW Health Pathol­o­gy can sup­port more test­ing clos­er to the patient. Oth­er rou­tine and non-urgent test­ing will be tran­si­tioned to Young where the lab­o­ra­to­ry will be expand­ed with addi­tion­al work­ing hours.

This also cre­ates the oppor­tu­ni­ty for more test­ing to be done local­ly in Young instead of being sent to Wag­ga or Syd­ney laboratories.

Bring­ing the Coota­mundra and Young lab­o­ra­to­ry teams togeth­er pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a more sus­tain­able ser­vice for the future, as well as bet­ter career devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for staff, increased ros­ter flex­i­bil­i­ty and reduced call backs and overtime.

We will be installing new­er, more advanced Point of Care Test­ing tech­nol­o­gy at Coota­mundra Hos­pi­tal, which means NSW Health Pathol­o­gy can sup­port more test­ing clos­er to the patient. Oth­er rou­tine and non-urgent test­ing will be tran­si­tioned to Young where the lab­o­ra­to­ry will be expand­ed with addi­tion­al work­ing hours.

We will ensure emer­gency blood prod­ucts and blood trans­fu­sion ser­vices remain avail­able local­ly for emer­gency respons­es and ser­vices like the emer­gency depart­ment, mater­ni­ty and surgery.

Antiven­om remains avail­able local­ly. Patients pre­sent­ing to Coota­mundra Hos­pi­tal with sus­pect­ed snake bite will be man­aged with­in the exist­ing clin­i­cal pro­to­col for the treat­ment in place for towns where there is no on-site lab­o­ra­to­ry. Urgent test­ing will be sent via couri­er. Some patients may require trans­fer depend­ing on their clin­i­cal con­di­tion in line with cur­rent clin­i­cal guide­lines, as is the case now. There has been 1 con­firmed snake bite in the last 2 years at Coota­mundra Hospital.

As is the case now, patients may be trans­ferred depend­ing on clin­i­cal cir­cum­stances. Where required urgent sam­ples can be sent for test­ing via couri­er. Addi­tion­al couri­er ser­vices will be imple­ment­ed to trans­port spec­i­mens dur­ing the day and after-hours. NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is also inves­ti­gat­ing overnight couri­er arrange­ments for urgent sam­ples. Pro­to­cols are avail­able for the safe man­age­ment of patients with sus­pect­ed parac­eta­mol over­dose where there is no on-site laboratory.

Chemother­a­py patients will still have access to local col­lec­tions in Coota­mundra as they do now. NSW Health Pathol­o­gy will work with patients to make sure they can be booked ahead of time for their col­lec­tion and coor­di­nate appro­pri­ate­ly with their clin­i­cal treat­ment appointments.

We will be employ­ing more couri­ers to trans­port spec­i­mens dur­ing the day and after-hours. NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is also inves­ti­gat­ing an on-call couri­er arrange­ment for urgent sam­ples overnight.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy will ensure emer­gency blood prod­ucts and blood trans­fu­sion ser­vices remain avail­able local­ly for emer­gency respons­es and ser­vices like the emer­gency depart­ment, mater­ni­ty and surgery.

Where there are planned surg­eries, we will cross match patients ahead of time. Where an emer­gency trau­ma patient or mater­ni­ty patient needs urgent blood trans­fu­sions, our staff will enact the exist­ing pro­to­col using uni­ver­sal blood transfusion.

Point of Care test­ing devices are already used by nurs­es and doc­tors at Coota­mundra Hos­pi­tal since 2014. We will ful­ly train all Coota­mundra health­care work­ers in the use of the new devices to be installed. 

We demon­strat­ed the tech­nol­o­gy at the recent infor­ma­tion ses­sions, includ­ing the time it takes for staff to pre­pare the sam­ple and load the test. Most tests will take between 5–15 min­utes and can be per­formed near the patient.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy man­ages the largest accred­it­ed Point of Care Test­ing ser­vice in the world and there are more than 100 staff trained already in POCT in the local region.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy has invest­ed in tech­nol­o­gy to sup­port addi­tion­al pro­cess­ing capac­i­ty at Young and this new equip­ment is in place and staff have been trained. The capac­i­ty of the lab­o­ra­to­ry will be enhanced by bring­ing the Young and Coota­mundra teams togeth­er with an extend­ed hours and week­end ser­vice. This com­bined work­force will be dou­ble what Young cur­rent­ly has. It cur­rent­ly has 3 full time sci­en­tists and we are going to increase it to 7.

The new instru­men­ta­tion allows for faster and larg­er vol­umes of test­ing on site at Young. For exam­ple, Young received brand new chem­i­cal pathol­o­gy analy­sers last year.

Cur­rent­ly, the major­i­ty of sam­ples tak­en in Coota­mundra include tests that require trans­fer to Syd­ney or Wagga. 

This expan­sion of ser­vices will see the oppor­tu­ni­ty for more test­ing under­tak­en with­in the local region at the Young laboratory. 

We val­ue our ded­i­cat­ed and skilled lab­o­ra­to­ry staff and all lab­o­ra­to­ry staff at Coota­mundra will be offered posi­tions at Young. NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is work­ing with each staff mem­ber on their indi­vid­ual cir­cum­stances and sup­port­ing them through the tran­si­tion. These dis­cus­sions will con­tin­ue to inform the devel­op­ment of rosters.

Bring­ing the Coota­mundra and Young lab­o­ra­to­ry teams togeth­er pro­vides the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate a more sus­tain­able ser­vice for the future, as well as bet­ter career devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for staff, increased ros­ter flex­i­bil­i­ty and reduced call backs and overtime. 

There is cur­rent­ly no back­log nor delay in crit­i­cal results. As is occur­ring now, some high­ly spe­cialised tests and less crit­i­cal tests are sent to larg­er lab­o­ra­to­ries, which is stan­dard prac­tice for pub­lic and pri­vate pathol­o­gy providers, not evi­dence of over­flow or backlog. 

Work sent to NSW Health Pathology’s Wag­ga Wag­ga lab from Young is gen­er­al­ly less time crit­i­cal, more spe­cialised and con­sid­ered more appro­pri­ate to be done in a larg­er lab­o­ra­to­ry. Test­ing that is even more spe­cialised is sent to West­mead. Con­sol­i­dat­ing spe­cialised test­ing helps sup­port staff to main­tain the appro­pri­ate high­er lev­el of train­ing and com­pe­ten­cy to pro­vide high qual­i­ty results for patients and referrers.

There is no need for Coota­mundra patients to trav­el to Young Hospital’s Emer­gency Depart­ment for care. Crit­i­cal test­ing for Coota­mundra patients will con­tin­ue to be done on-site, with an enhanced suite of Point of Care tests. 

Local res­i­dents will not expe­ri­ence any change to the care they receive. They will still be able to access pathol­o­gy col­lec­tion ser­vices in Coota­mundra and our lab­o­ra­to­ry staff will pro­vide high qual­i­ty, accu­rate and reli­able pathol­o­gy test­ing at an expand­ed lab­o­ra­to­ry ser­vice from Young.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and Mur­rumbidgee Local Health Dis­trict are work­ing togeth­er to ensure there is no impact on ser­vices at Coota­mundra Hos­pi­tal, includ­ing emer­gency, surgery and maternity.

NSWHP man­ages the largest accred­it­ed Point of Care Test­ing (PoCT) ser­vice in Aus­tralia, with more than 1080 devices in 190 health ser­vices across NSW. 

Sam­ples are processed instant­ly, rather than trans­port­ed to a lab for test­ing, deliv­er­ing accu­rate results in min­utes to inform clin­i­cal deci­sion-mak­ing and improve patient care and outcomes.

We pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive train­ing and edu­ca­tion to hos­pi­tal doc­tors and nurs­es to ensure staff feel well trained and sup­port­ed to use the devices.

We will ensure the PoCT tech­nol­o­gy is suit­able for the local Emer­gency Depart­ment and can be moved between floors. We will be hold­ing addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion ses­sions for Coota­mundra Hos­pi­tal staff to demon­strate the PoCT capa­bil­i­ties and talk through the exten­sive train­ing and sup­port that will be avail­able to them.

There will always be a min­i­mum of 2 of the most crit­i­cal PoCT devices on-site so these tests can always be done. If one of the devices breaks down or is dam­aged, it will be replaced by NSW Health Pathology’s team locat­ed in Wag­ga Wag­ga. They have devices ready to go to facil­i­ties in the case of emer­gency and we aim to have the devices replaced with­in 24 hours. 

Coota­mundra Lab­o­ra­to­ry has not been recent­ly refur­bished and would require exten­sive build­ing works to ensure it is mod­ern and fit for pur­pose. Exist­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry equip­ment at Coota­mundra Lab­o­ra­to­ry would be trans­ferred to the Young Lab­o­ra­to­ry or oth­er labs in NSW Health Pathology’s net­work of services.