The Infectious Diseases Clinic provides inpatient, outpatient and ambulatory services for patients who have been diagnosed with an infectious disease or who are at risk of an infectious disease (ID).
Services are provided to patients living in the central Adelaide area, as well as those referred from rural and remote areas.
Children are usually managed by paediatricians with referral to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
Depending on the clinical need, adolescents can be managed at the RAH or The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (with various approvals required).
Services provided include:
- outpatient clinical consultations for diagnosis and management
- ambulatory outpatient intravenous antibiotic management.
There are many people who attend our clinic that require ongoing specialised assessment, supervision and medication from one of our infectious diseases clinicians, for example human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) management.
Other patients may require a period of ID specialist supervision followed by discharge from the clinic, for example hepatitis C assessment and treatment. For some patients, a shared care arrangement is most suitable.
In other conditions, the objective of an infectious diseases outpatient appointment is to provide an assessment of the patient, an opinion regarding the key clinical issues and advice to the patient and the referring practitioner over one to two visits followed by formal discharge from the clinic.
A variety of clinics are held. Patients are seen by a consultant medical office or an advanced trainee (registrar) in infectious diseases, or a resident medical officer (RMO), and / or a specialist infectious diseases nurse with direct supervision by a consultant.