Blog: TREKK update from Terry Klassen

TREKK has had a very eventful first year --- challenges but also some real highlights. I don’t think any of us envisaged how difficult it would be to go into each of our TREKK emergency departments (ED) with iPads to determine the knowledge needs of our health care providers and consumers. But we have persevered, and whether it was ethics or operational approval, funding agreements or other obstacles we have made great strides with over 1100 responses from providers and 350 from consumers. The prioritization committee is already starting to examine these responses for patterns and to get a sense of how best to organize the next phase of getting knowledge tools in these EDs to improve care.

Part of our success of the first year is directly tied into the quality of our team that we have been building. Having TREKK/PERC coordinators do the front end work of creating the relationship with these EDs guided by the needs assessment team in Edmonton. Our nodal leaders, PERC site leads and steering committee have provided great advice and wisdom. Our central administrative team has now been recruited and is first rate – with Lisa Knisley as knowledge broker/network manager and Christa Kruck as the research coordinator. Of course, most importantly are the TREKK sites that have generously opened their doors and allowed us to get to know them better and helped champion this important project.

We are now actively collating the refined knowledge tools that are out there – be they systematic reviews, clinical practice guidelines, pathways or preprinted order forms we will try to find them if they are of sufficient quality and relevant to the care of children in a general ED. We will look at the results of the needs survey to get a sense of how best to provide them to the TREKK sites. Do people still like paper or is the internet the way to go? Maybe everyone has a smartphone and that is the preferred method. We are open and flexible.

Telling the TREKK story, although still in its early chapters, is always very exciting for me. To have 12 PERC sites and 35 TREKK sites come together as a network in such a short time is amazing. We need to work further on strengthening and developing this network. It has been exciting to present TREKK at CAEP in Niagara Falls and CCYHC in Vancouver in 2012. On March 25, I have been invited to present TREKK at Evidence Live 2013 at Oxford University (http://www.evidencelive.org/) and they are already blogging about it (http://doc2doc.bmj.com/forums/bmj_evidence-2011_trekk-evidence-based-medicine-emergency-paediatrics).

I think what most excites me about TREKK is when I reflect on the children and their families that visit our general EDs. The possibility that we can have an impact and improve some of their outcomes is truly motivating. Together we can do so.