Nurses upskilled to offer skin checks in regional areas
With 1 in 36 South Australians at risk of developing melanoma in their lifetime, Preventive Health SA has partnered with UniSA’s Rosemary Bryant AO Research Centre for a second year, to deliver Project Check Mate. This initiative offers free skin checks to regional South Australians, using an innovative approach to train nurses in dermoscopy and digital photography.
As part of this initiative, local nurses are trained to perform detailed skin checks at local regional field days and efficiently triage patients, referring only those with suspicious lesions to local GPs. This model not only optimises limited GP resources but also reduces the need for patients to travel to metropolitan areas, cutting down on waiting times and healthcare costs. By offering skin checks at community events such as field days, people who may not usually attend a GP have access to a skin check, which not only supports skin cancer prevention but will also encourage people who may not otherwise present for preventive healthcare to access a GP.
Training local nurses offers an accessible, timely and cost effective approach to skin checks, promoting early detection and better patient outcomes and brings services closer to home.
Within their scope of practice, the Project Check Mate implements a nurse led model to detect skin cancer and refer suspicious lesions for GP care, to avoid more costly and invasive interventions.
This initiative trains nurses using a nine week online course, which includes online discussion groups and a final exam. Participating nurses receive a handheld MoleScope device and access to AI technology to input provisional diagnoses and reinforce learnings to detect suspicious skin lesions. Where possible the local GP service makes appointments available on the day of the event for patients who are referred by the Project Check Mate nurses.
Last year, South Australian nurses were trained for the pop-up clinics at Clare and Coober Pedy field days.
Across these two events, 191 people had total body skin checks and nurses detected 11 suspected cases of melanoma, 42 people were identified with suspected skin lesions that required referral (basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas) and 40 participants had lesions that required monitoring.
Training local nurses to continue performing skin checks provides an ongoing legacy, building the capacity within the local health system.