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STD Services Staff

Clinic 275

Role and Functions of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Services, Royal Adelaide Hospital

Services Provided

Organisation and Role

Services Provided by STD Services

Clinical Services

Free and confidential advice, testing, treatment for all STDs (including HIV infection) at:

Clinic 275
275 North Terrace (1st Floor)
ADELAIDE 5000

Clinic Hours

Monday, Thursday, Friday  10.00 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.

Tuesday, Wednesday  11.30 am - 6.30 p.m.

No appointment necessary; telephone 8222 5075 for advice or discussion at a personal or general level on STD. 
South Australian country callers only: 1800 806 490 (toll free)

Training and Education

Workshops for all levels of health workers (doctors/nurses/social workers); all workshop participants receive regular updated literature on STD and may borrow teaching materials from STD Resource Centre; enquiries, bookings and materials, contact the surveillance unit, telephone 8222 2526.

Publications

• Annual epidemiologic and quarterly surveillance reports describing the epidemiologic patterns of STD, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C in South Australia.

• Technical bulletins on various aspects of STD.

Contact the surveillance unit, telephone 8222 2526, regarding mailing list.

Clinical training is offered to all medical practitioners and nurses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

For further information, contact Dr Gavin Hart, telephone 8222 5075.

Consultant Services

• Advice and support with all aspects of individual client management

• Epidemiologic and statistical information

• Health promotion and other STD control activities

Contact Dr Gavin Hart on telephone 8222 5075

Organisation and Role of STD Services

STD Services operates as an integrated program combining clinical and public health activities. This service provides a centre of excellence for clinical care, epidemiology and contact tracing of STD including HIV, hepatitis B and also hepatitis C . The STD control program has been developed in accordance with principles outlined in 'Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases' World Health Organization, 1985.

The role of the STD control program is to reduce the impact of STD in the community by:

• reducing the incidence of disease

• reducing the duration of infection

• reducing the complications and the anxiety associated with infection

• decreasing the nett costs of managing individual cases.

The functions of STD Services, the headquarters of the control program, are:

• improving clinical care

• improving laboratory diagnosis

• developing programs for training health care personnel

• performing operational research

• implementing control strategies such as health promotion, contact tracing and screening.

Figure 1 Organizational structure of STD Services as at 1 January, 2004.

Clinical Services

The primary role of Clinic 275 (the central STD clinic) is to facilitate the functions of STD Services. It provides an environment for developing clinical protocols, assessing the performance of laboratory tests, training health care workers, and collecting epidemiologic information.

Specific activities of Clinic 275 include:

• providing a clinical training resource for education/professional training

• development of diagnosis and management guidelines for all STD (available to all clinicians on request)

• providing information for analysis by the surveillance unit

• providing statewide consultation to clinicians on diagnosis and management of STD

• in addition to the above activities, high quality care is provided for an estimated 30% of episodes of notifiable STD in metropolitan Adelaide

• whereas Clinic 275 operates predominantly as a public service, private care is available by appointment on referral from general practitioners

• counselling to reduce risk taking among clientele which is a major strategy for reducing reinfection with all STD

• periodic immune assessment of clients infected with HIV

• counselling and referral service for HIV positive and AIDS clients

• periodic assessment of liver function for clients with HCV or HBV infection

• clinical trials for treatment drugs and vaccines.

STD Clinic Resource Utilization (SCRU) System

Since 1 January 1987 a standardized casenotes system (form STD.M.1) has operated. A key element of this system is aggregating attendances to episodes of illness and assigning such episodes to individual clients. This provides more meaningful statistics than systems which merely analyse data in terms of attendance, thereby producing a marked bias when a few clients account for a disproportionate number of attendances.

Surveillance Unit

The surveillance unit is responsible for the collection, analysis and dissemination of epidemiological data, education/professional training and operation of statewide notification systems.

Epidemiology

The role of this unit is to analyse data on STD (including HIV/AIDS infection, hepatitis B and the blood borne hepatitis C infection) as a basis for control strategies or guidelines for medical practitioners; to conduct research for these same purposes and to implement control strategies.

Special activities include:

• operation and analysis of clinic records

• operation of the statewide chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis, HIV, AIDS, hepatitis B and hepatitis C notification systems

• participation in sentinel HIV surveillance in STD clinics; this project involves collaboration between the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, public STD clinics in the five Australian states and the National Venereology Council of Australia

• liaison with community groups with a particular interest in STD control

• contact tracing on index cases referred from both Clinic 275 and from medical practitioners outside the central STD Clinic

• the Surveillance Unit publishes an annual epidemiologic report and quarterly surveillance reports.

Education/Professional Training

The major emphasis is to provide training on STD to major groups of health professionals, particularly medical undergraduates and nursing graduates. Such training is conducted predominantly at Clinic 275.

Specific activities include:

• training of medical students - seminars, self-learning programs and clinical experience

• training of doctors - seminars and clinical experience

• supervision and training of medical trainees at Clinic 275 (RMOs from RAH)

• training of specialist STD counsellors/contact tracers

• in-service training of all Clinic 275 staff

• training of STD educators

• production of client information pamphlets, guidelines for doctors and STD educational material for educators

• dissemination of STD information to health professionals and libraries

• production of slides, video and written training materials for health professional training

• consultancy service for STD training activities conducted by other agencies

• supervision of school groups and others visiting Clinic 275.

• publication of information on an internet site.

Notification System for Sexually Transmitted and Blood Borne Diseases

See the Notification section of this web site.

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