Why is concussion important?
Concussion, also known as mild traumatic brain injury, affects about 35,000 people per year in Aotearoa New Zealand. While outwardly people with concussion can appear relatively normal, their lived experience can be anything but.
People often describe headaches, dizziness, concentration problems, extreme tiredness, sleep disturbance, and emotional instability that may persist. As a result ACC has spearheaded a campaign to improve the screening and assessment of concussion at the first visit whether this happens in emergency departments, rural hospitals, or General Practice.
“Whilst called a ‘mild traumatic brain injury’, the impact on people, their whanau and their work can be far from mild.”
What can be done about concussion?
A common misconception is that there is no treatment for concussion. On the
contrary concussion can be treated effectively by specialist providers. These are ACC-funded multidisciplinary teams who follow evidence-based practice guidelines for management of concussion symptoms.
Care is tailored to meet individual needs, and ACC concussion providers are available across NZ with outreach to rural areas. Early referral is essential, as it can be harder to treat people who are referred late because peoples’ problems and symptoms may escalate with time, making their relationships and work situations even more challenging.
What’s my role?
As clinicians in the emergency department faced with an increasing number of patients to see, we often focus more on the rapid management of resuscitation, CT scanning, and repair of broken bones and visible wounds. However, this approach risks missing more subtle symptoms of mild traumatic brain injury and delaying essential care.
While usually we have referred patients to their GP for follow-up care, research found that the reality for patients with concussion in our health system was an average time of 3 months to access concussion services.
“It is essential that Emergency Departments take responsibility for identifying concussion and making the appropriate referral.”
What next? Wayfind-TBI
We recognise that working in the emergency department places great demands on people’s time and attention, so we have developed a digital tool called Wayfind-TBI. Led by emergency physicians, Wayfind TBI has been designed to enable the whole clinical team to contribute to a comprehensive screening and specialist referral process for your patients, based on the latest research evidence.Using My Health Workforce, Aotearoa’s digital identity for our health workforce, users of Wayfind can work on any desktop or mobile device to complete a comprehensive concussion assessment.
Wayfind TBI completes the process by automatically compiling clinical records, and where indicated sending a completed referral document to ACC providers in your region.
“Wayfind-TBI is designed to make the right clinical care easier”
Health Research Council funded research
Our Health Research Council funded multi-centre trial will examine whether the implementation of Wayfind TBI will improve patient care and outcomes when compared to usual care.
“We hope that you understand how important this is for many thousand New
Zealanders every year, and we invite you to pick up Wayfind TBI and try it out”
Get Started with Wayfind TBI
In order to get the most from Wayfind-TBI we recommend setting up a My Health Workforce account. You will only need to do this once.
About Us
We are a leading team of researchers and clinicians from all around Aotearoa who are trying to help improve recovery from mild brain injuries such as concussion.
Our work is generously supported by Health Research Council, ACC, Te Whatu Ora, AUT Brain Injury Network, University of Otago, University of Auckland
Please contact Jason Chua on Jason.chua@aut.ac.nz or phone/text 021965188 if you have any questions.
