February 2019
-
Prepare and Prevent: Daily Safety Brief
Northern Health’s Daily Safety Brief is a daily huddle whereby all areas of the organisation come together to highlight any issues affecting patient and staff safety that might have happened in the previous 24 hours, and whether anything is predicted to happen over the next 24 hours. Jane Poxon, Chief Operating Officer, leads the huddle and says, “the idea of the briefing is to take the pulse of the organisation and know where our hot spots are”. A senior medic is also the ‘Safety Officer of the Day’. Their roles are to ensure that all areas reporting as Red/Amber have…
-
Laughter the best medicine
They say laughter is the best medicine, and our youngest patients at Northern Hospital Epping got to test that theory out today thanks to another visit from the ‘clown doctors’. Clown doctors provide a welcome escape from the reality of hospitalisation, visiting patients and their families to bring humour to healing. Laughter not only relaxes our patients, but also helps their families who may be anxious and overwhelmed. The clown doctors visited a number of different areas of the hospital including the Emergency Department and Children’s Ward, and prescribed a healthy dose of cheer throughout. “We just love having them…
-
World-first virtual reality technology at Northern Hospital
Yesterday, we welcomed Channel Nine to Northern Hospital Epping to interview Cardiologist and University of Melbourne Professor, Peter Barlis, about a cutting-edge technology used to create virtual scans of inside coronary arteries. In collaboration with Melbourne University, the world-first virtual reality technology has been designed to give cardiologists greater information and help to improve clinical decision-making for better patient care. Pioneered by Professor Barlis, the technology uses the latest in high-resolution scans and the use of super-computers and mathematical models to compute a “virtual fly through” inside the artery, to look at how cholesterol deposits form and to guide cardiologists on…
-
Symptom & Urgent Review Clinic (SURC) launches at Northern
This week, Northern Health launched its new Oncology and Haematology Symptom and Urgent Review Clinic (SURC). SURC is a free service for any patient with cancer, who is experiencing distressing side effects from undergoing systemic (chemotherapy or immunotherapy) treatment at Northern Health. SURCs provide an alternative to patients attending the emergency department (for those with non-critical issues) and is staffed by an experienced cancer nurse, who may provide advice over the phone or request that a patient comes into the clinic. These clinics have been established at major cancer units across Victoria and have proven to be a very useful service…
-
Teddy bears get a check-up
The Northern Hospital foyer was buzzing with kids, parents, Melbourne University students and teddy bears, for another ‘Teddy Bear Hospital’ day. This initiative, held four times a year at Northern Hospital, aims to help kids get familiar with hospital environments and some of the basic equipment, helping our youngest patients feel more comfortable when they come to see a doctor. The programme benefits the medical students as well. Ashlee Frye, third year medical student at Melbourne University, says this programme helps them get used to talking to kids in a fun way. “For some medical students, talking to small children…
-
Get to know: Q&A with Colin Woodward
Get to know: Q&A with… is a new series of Northern Health staff profiles, where we talk about working at Northern, hobbies, personal interests and fun things! The first staff member we’ve interviewed is Colin Woodward. Get to know him: What is your coffee order? I prefer instant coffee. Tell us about your Northern Health journey? I started at Northern Health almost 11 years ago. Prior to this, I was working in the private health sector as a Facilities Manager for Villa Maria Disability Services. Being a Wallan resident, I wanted something closer to home and applied for a role…
-
Learning Improvement Science Turns 50
‘Learning Improvement Science at Northern Health (LISN)’ workshop was established in June 2015, with the aim to give Northern Health staff a way to understand improvement methodology and feel empowered to go back to their work environment and make improvements. LISN is an action learning improvement workshop built around a simulation of Day Procedure Unit (DPU). Multiple cycles are conducted to improve patient’s clinical outcomes and access, reduce documentation errors, while at the same time, improve efficiency. This workshop is crucial to the High Reliability (HRO) – Trusted Care transformation, as one of the critical success factors in achieving HRO…
-
Black Saturday: A time of reflection and remembrance
On 7 February 2009, the worst bush fires in our nation’s history, the Black Saturday fires claimed 173 human lives, injured 5,000 people, destroyed 2,029 homes, killed countless animals, and burnt through over 4,500-square kilometres of land. Today marks the 10 year anniversary of that day, an event that occurred very close to Northern Hospital, marked by a commemoration ceremony at The Chapel of Northern Health . In the two weeks preceding Black Saturday, Victoria experienced a severe heatwave. Melbourne had temperatures in excess of 43°C for three consecutive days. Combined with the effects of the long term drought, extreme fire…