In March and April this year, the Australian Government provided $6.6 million for the delivery of two nurse training programs in response to COVID-19:
- to refresh clinical skills (delivered by the ACN), and
- in critical and high dependency care (delivered by Medcast).
The ACN was funded $2.5 million to provide online Refresher training to 3,000 Registered Nurses (RNs) to refresh their clinical skills. The Refresher training resulted in 2,746 (91.5%) completions.
Medcast was funded $4.1 million to train up to 22,000 RNs to deliver care in critical care and high dependency care units. 22,229 eligible RNs enrolled in critical care and/or high dependency care training and 16,461 (74.05%) RNs completed at least one course. RN participation was greatest from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
Evaluation of the programs showed online delivery mechanisms used were cost efficient, supported rapid access, and provided consistent education across multiple health networks and hospitals across Australia. National online delivery of the programs also avoided duplication of cost and effort within the state health systems and hospital networks.