The Collaborative Team Award for a team or health service that has provided an innovative approach to the delivery of health care during the pandemic was awarded to COVID-19 Response and Action Information Group (CRAIG) at the Top End Health Service (TEHS).
The TEHS CRAIG team members are Ruth Derkenne, Kelly Hosking, Jane Thomas, Tracy Porter and Teresa De Santis.
This team, has worked tirelessly since the arrival of the pandemic in Australia to produce plans and procedures for remote clinics to follow, and have continually kept up to date with the multiple changes that have occurred.
A major move was to design and develop easy to wipe down gowns made of parachute material so that health workers could practice donning and doffing whilst not having to throw away precious PPE, travelling to remote clinics to do this training.
They also created the CRAIG TEHS Primary Health Care newsletter, sent out weekly, now fortnightly, updating remote clinics with the changes, plans and resources available to them.
In addition, they have helped train and pull together Rapid Assessment and Rapid Response Teams, who are on call to be deployed into remote locations should a
case of COVID be found.
Team members have spent countless nights awake and weekends at work to develop all these things so that remote clinics are as best prepared as they can be for a positive COVID case.
The CRANAplus Collaborative Team Award is sponsored by Remote Area Health Corps (RAHC).
