Reural Connect

Traumatic brain injuries acquired in remote or rural areas that require emergency neurosurgical intervention have a small window of opportunity. If a patient is located further than 3-4 hours away from a neurosurgeon, often the rural general surgeon is required to perform the neurosurgical procedure, often for the first time. Currently, a neurosurgeon would consult with the general surgeon on the phone on how to approach the procedure. For our proposed solution, we created a service design which supports general surgeons by connecting them to nearby skilled surgeons through an integrated support and training network. Data from a survey of 161 rural general surgeons found that at 90 of them had performed a total of 600 neurosurgical procedures over a 5 year period, so that means over 50% of rural general surgeons may have experience performing emergency neurosurgery. So what if a doctor in the next town has experience with a craniotomy and can assist your patient? Reural Connect is a network to connect regional general surgeons skilled in neurosurgical trauma procedures. You're able to easily find, contact and transfer the patient for treatment using integrated Royal Flying Doctor Service that has connections all over Australia. In addition to that, Reural Connect integrates a training and education toolkit, consisting of e-learning resources and physical training tools, such as the exciting 3D printed training models currently being developed by the Herston Biofabrication Institute. This network could be rolled out at conferences, dedicated workshops, or sent directly to your regional hospital to involve the whole surgical team.