IMplementing clinical Pathways for Acute Care in Tasmania (IMPACT)

Clinical pathways (CPs) are evidence-based multidisciplinary plans that enable consistent, effective and efficient clinical care in complex healthcare settings. It has been demonstrated that CPs improve cost-effectiveness, reduce length of hospital stay by up to 22% and reduce variations in patient care. Consequently, models of care incorporating CPs can relieve the pressure faced by Emergency Departments (EDs) and improve the health and wellbeing of all Australians. Although many states and territories have created over a dozen publicly available CPs, no peer-review data exists regarding the uptake of CPs in the Australian ED setting, whether this varies by jurisdiction or regionality and what their impact on health outcomes are.

The Implementing clinical Pathways for Acute Care in Tasmania (IMPACT) project will co-design with consumers a theory-based and user-informed scalable and sustainable implementation strategy for Tasmanian CPs; conduct a process evaluation of the implementation strategy; conduct a health outcome analysis of CPs; conduct economic analyses of the CPs (costs and benefits); and identify high-risk, high-cost and high-volume diagnosis-related groups that would benefit from CPs in Tasmania. The project will establish a regional acute care implementation science laboratory to deliver the project and create regional infrastructure to support future implementation projects. The laboratory will also have the potential to be incorporated into a national network to foster collaboration and enable rapid translation to improve effectiveness and efficiency of acute care across Australia.

The project is led by clinician researchers in Tasmania’s four EDs and representing peak professional bodies for emergency nursing, emergency medicine, primary care and pre-hospital providers with the University of Tasmania, Ambulance Tasmania, Tasmanian Department of Health (including the Tasmanian Health Service) and Health Consumers Tasmania.