SEEC: An area approach to education in emergency departments

Providing education to nursing staff in a meaningful, timely, standardised and coordinated manner is a challenge for managers and educators of most emergency departments. The pressures of workload and diminished personnel resources have made providing education increasingly difficult. Education programs can become inequitable, spasmodic, interrupted, and have varying standards. In an area health service in Sydney's South West, a coordinated approach to address the development, coordination, delivery and evaluation of education in the six emergency departments was developed. This education approach began in the late 1990s when the Nurse educator at the major referral hospital brought together educational representatives (clinical nurse educator or clinical nurse specialist) from each of the six emergency departments. This group became known as South Western Sydney Area Health Service Emergency Educators Committee (SEEC). This group has continued to grow and develop and is now well recognised across the area health service as the group responsible for managing emergency department education.