Virtual Emergency Care Service advice for health professionals

About our virtual emergency care service

Our virtual emergency care service (VECS) for health professionals is open every day from 8 am to 10 pm, including public holidays.

GPs, nurses, paramedics, and other health professionals can call our emergency care specialists to get advice about any patient that:

• needs input from a hospital specialist
• is stable
• doesn’t need to be taken to an emergency department
• is not already under the care of a Queensland Health facility, for example an emergency department or satellite hospital.

It can be for things like acute respiratory illnesses, infections, allergic reactions, and minor head or sports injuries.

What we do

Our emergency care doctors will give advice to help you:

• give emergency care if it’s needed
• interpret the results of pathology, radiology, ECG and other tests
• keep managing your patient in the community
• access hospital managed community services like residential aged care district assessment and referral service (RADAR) and hospital in the home (HITH).

Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) can also use the service to refer patients for virtual emergency care.

Advice for primary and community health professionals

For Queensland primary care health professionals needing emergency care advice.

1. Call 1300 847 833.
2. You’ll speak to a senior emergency nurse who will triage your call.
3. Give the nurse your name and phone number.
4. Give the nurse the patients name, date of birth and a brief description of the problem.
5. We’ll place you in a queue in order of urgency.
6. We’ll connect you to an emergency care doctor as soon as possible.

For anything life threatening you should still call Triple Zero (000).

Advice for Queensland Ambulance Service

Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) paramedics can refer patients in Queensland for virtual emergency care.

To refer a patient:

1. complete a thorough physical and clinical assessment of the patient
2. if they are stable and don’t need to be taken to the emergency department, call 1300 847 833
3. give the nurse your name and phone number
4. give the nurse the patient's name, date of birth and a brief description of the problem
5. if it’s safe to do so, give a handover and leave the patient in the care of the VECS team.

To get advice from an emergency doctor, follow steps one to 4 and then:

• we will connect you to an emergency care doctor as soon as possible
• give the doctor your clinical and physical assessment of the patient – they may also ask to speak to the patient
• the emergency care doctor will give you advice about what to do next
• if they ask you to give any treatment that’s outside the QAS scope of practice, call the QAS clinical consultation line for approval
• after every referral, complete an eARF and contact the QAS operations centre to let them know the outcome.