The Children’s Ward at Northern Hospital are grateful for the support they have received recently from Koala Kids Foundation – a volunteer-driven organisation that provides “small things that make a difference to the lives of children and young people.”

“Koala Kids contacted us about a month ago – they are a foundation that traditionally supports children with cancer and their families and the health care team who support them, and they had started reaching out to general paediatric units,” said Courtney Lowry, Children’s Ward Nurse Unit Manager.

Since linking in with Koala Kids, the Children’s Ward has received an abundance of therapeutic and other resources for children, their families and staff.

One of the most significant donations to the ward from Koala Kids was 12L of hand sanitiser.  Courtney contacted Northern Health Foundation to figure out the best way to distribute the sanitiser to patients and families.

“Northern Health Foundation funded the bottles for us and made labels for them, so we are able to give them out to families when they are discharged home – all up we made about 240 bottles. It’s a hard resource at the moment for anyone to get their hands on, so being able to give these to our families, is just an extra little thing we can do for them in these challenging times,” Courtney said.

“Koala Kids also donated a coffee machine to the ward for staff and the families to use, lots of different pantry snacks for the families to enjoy – two minute noodles, spaghetti, tiny teddies and Shapes – snacks that kids particularly like to eat,” Courtney said.

“We had a teenager in overnight recently and she said she was finally hungry after having no appetite due to feeling unwell.  The nurse had so many options from which she could choose, so at midnight she was able to eat noodles, spaghetti and popcorn! Normally the only thing we have to offer in the middle of the night is some toast. So it’s been amazing – overwhelming really!” Courtney added.

Besides the many generous items donated to the ward, Koala Kids also surprise staff with gifts on many occasions.

“We received a box of ANZAC cookies recently with a sign saying – ‘For all the families, doctors and nurses for ANZAC Day’. They also sent two big boxes of chocolate bunnies for Easter, specially for the nursing team,” Courtney said.

“Out of the blue, another package will turn up – like boxes of LEGO, colour in back packs and pencil cases specially drawn by Koala Kids volunteers, an abundance of bubbles……recently it was pizza boxes filled with activities for the kids to make a present for their mums for Mother’s Day!” Courtney added.

“Last week, we had a patient who had her birthday while she was in hospital with us – we were able to grab a bunch of things from the donations from Koala Kids to give to her so we could celebrate her birthday in a small way.”

“It’s the smallest things that can sometimes make the biggest difference. Thank you Koala Kids Foundation and Northern Health Foundation for all of your support of our patients, their families, and our hardworking staff!”

Featured Image: Katrina and daughter Isabella with nurses, Nicole and Aleks with the hand sanitisers 

The Northern Health Hospital in the Home (HITH) team have expanded their services to include offering iron infusions to eligible patients in the comfort of their own home.

HITH began offering infusions to patients who were already receiving treatment in their home for other reasons but also required an infusion, so the service helps patients stay at home longer and avoid extra travel including potentially having to come into hospital for one day.

“Some of the people who are frail were finding it difficult to travel to get their iron infusion done so it is more convenient to see those patients in their own homes with our nurses going out there,” said Lynne Santamaria, HITH Acting Nurse Unit Manager.

The home iron infusion service has ramped up over the last 6-12 months, offering the service to more patients where possible.

HITH are now able to provide iron infusions through the Residential Care Intervention in the Elderly (RECIPE) Program, so people living in aged care facilities can receive their infusion at home, rather than having to present to hospital.

For patients in hospital, the home service means they are able to be discharged sooner and saves them additional travel.

“If there’s a patient on the ward who may be ready to go home today but they require an iron infusion, their discharge might be delayed. So now, they could go home earlier and we would go to their house and do the infusion the next day. The service also helps prevent readmissions – if a patient is very frail and the infusion isn’t done within the next few days, they could end up being readmitted,” said Michelle McDonald, HITH Clinical Liaison Nurse.

“Patients are just much more comfortable in their own homes,” Lynne added.

In the current pandemic, COVID-19 has impacted all areas of Northern Health and HITH is no exception. HITH receives referrals from community home-based care programs and nursing homes asking for swabs on symptomatic patients that are unable to get to a fever clinic for a swab.

“Our staff have done this willingly and use full PPE when attending these visits. HITH also provided swabbing of asymptomatic patients during the government’s testing blitz,” Lynne said.

“Our staff have accepted and embraced all the challenges that come and will continue to come with nursing during this COVID-19 period. As their manager, I am very proud of the way our unit epitomizes the Northern Health values – safe, kind and together.”

Featured Image: HITH Nurse, Elle, with patient, Keith Carney

Procurement and Supply is responsible for third-party spending in the organisation, which totals approximately $180 million annually. A significant part of their function includes the management of consumables for wards, theatres, emergency, ICU and specialist clinics.

Rishad Syed has been Director of Procurement and Supply for three years. “Supply is all about continuity of service and COVID-19 has challenged our ability to keep the supply chain working, but I am glad to say we have managed. The biggest test has been ensuring adequate personal protection equipment. Initially we relied on our wide network of vendors to meet our demand including some new suppliers. Now, we rely more on the state centralised warehouse at Scoresby that has taken up the challenge of ensuring adequate supply for the state.”

There is a team of 12 working in Procurement and Supply, with five people in procurement and seven in supply. The whole team has been focused on supply over the last two months.

“We found local suppliers for face shields, eye shields and lens, sanitiser and scrubs. There are local companies that can support us, and that is something we have learned through this.”

To make sure the team is well rested in the challenging times where weekend work was frequent, Rishad made sure everybody used up their ADOs and got the rest that they needed.

As he prepares for his new role and industry, Rishad says Northern Health has been home for him for the last three years and he has thoroughly enjoyed working here.

“We have fantastic executives and I am very thankful for Siva and Basil for the opportunities they have given me. When I started, there was no Supply Department. Now we have 12 people and we comply with all Health Purchasing Victoria (HPV) regulatory requirements. I am most proud that I have been able to set up a department here at Northern,” he said.

“I will miss my team enormously as we have become close friends, especially now through this COVID-19 period. I will miss working with people at Northern Health, and the health sector as a whole. My biggest miss will be Basil Ireland. I loved working for Basil and he has been the best boss ever,” he added.

“I am thankful for my team, who have always supported me really well.”

This week is National Volunteer Week! Volunteers play an important part in helping Northern Health deliver outstanding health care for our community.

We have over 350 volunteers across our sites who assist with a variety of roles including guiding, manning the library trolley and drinks cart, visiting patients for a chat, cuddling babies, helping with administrative tasks, helping with Q-Flow, Social Support Group and assisting with fundraising activities. The volunteers also partner with community groups such as Red Cross, Whittlesea City Salvos, Whittlesea Craft Group, Kangaroo Ground Knitters and local schools.

Traditionally, Volunteer Week is an occasion where the volunteers are invited to an event where they are recognised and rewarded for their years of service. Due to COVID-19, volunteer activity across all sites unfortunately had to be suspended in the interest of their safety.

However, this year, Henni Wade, Christine McGowan and Monica Polimeni who oversee the volunteer services program, decided that since the volunteers couldn’t come here – they would go to them! They took it on themselves yesterday to drive 111 kms to personally deliver years of service awards to 17 of our volunteers. They plan to deliver the rest later this week.

Here in their words is a description of their ‘road trip’:

Today was a lovely day for a road-trip. Our first stop was at Pat Wills’ place. She was very surprised to see us. Pat has helped with a multitude of tasks including Palliative Care, raffles and the Goods Trolley. Congratulations on 20 years of service Pat! 

Pauline Chua is one of our CVS volunteers who is celebrating 15 years of service. Pauline had been regularly visiting residents in Villa Maria and Grace Villa. She can’t wait to be out and about visiting again. 

As we were trying to surprise volunteers with our visit, not everyone was home. Kevin Hede had popped out for a walk, so his son Darren accepted Kevin’s 15 years of service gift on his behalf. Kevin helped out in the Men’s Shed for a long time and is currently volunteering at the Broadmeadows Surgical Centre. 

We also missed Loretta Bettles and Brian Hoctor who are volunteer drivers. Loretta has been a driver for 10 years and Brian for 5 years. Silvia Crocitti wasn’t home either but we left her gift in a secret hiding place. Silvia has volunteered for 15 years at Bundoora Centre in the Busy Fingers Shop and also at the Northern Hospital. 

Jo McKenna has also reached a 20 year milestone. Unfortunately Jo wasn’t home and sent in this photo of herself holding her gifts. Jo volunteers on the Disability Advisory Group, is part of the Consumer Participation Group, helps with Q-Flow, sells raffle tickets, helps run the bingo and wherever else there is a need.  Phew!! What a list – thanks so much Jo!

 Lauren is pictured here with her Mum and Dad. Lauren has reached an amazing 20 year milestone! There is nothing that Lauren isn’t willing to try. She helps with so many things around the hospital. Thank you Lauren – you are a shining star!

Bill Butler volunteers at Broadmeadows Hospital helping with the Planned Activity Group/Old Blokes Shed. He is celebrating 15 years of volunteering. Congratulations Bill!

 

We managed to surprise Neville Watson and Les Poynton in person who are both from our Bundoora Centre, but missed Dennis Couche who had popped out for a walk.

 The lovely Lilia Corpaci has volunteered at Northern Hospital for 10 years. Lilia mainly helps out with replenishing stock in Emergency Department, but will help out where-ever needed. Thank you Lilia!

Norma McGrillen  is celebrating an impressive 20 years of volunteering. Norma helps out in the Busy Fingers Shop. Thank you so much for all that you have done for us Norma.

Nina Cardamone is one of our Pastoral Care volunteers. Nina has been volunteering with us for 10 years. Thank you Nina, it is so comforting for our patients to have your visits.

Other volunteer milestones include Shirley Dwyer who is celebrating 25 years. There are many more volunteers celebrating milestones, too many to mention here! Please join us in wishing our lovely volunteers, “Happy Volunteers Week!” We miss you!

Featured picture shows Volunteer Pauline Chua flanked by Monica Polimeni,Christine McGowan and Henni Wade.

Residential In-Reach is a program, operating through Northern Hospital, that works with local residential care facilities to try and prevent admissions into hospital and treat more residents within their homes.

The program started in 2002 and provides clinical, specialist nursing, geriatric medicine and palliative care support as requested once a GP or a nursing home refers a patient to the program.

“We can go out and provide clinical assessment and some level of support together with Hospital in the Home service, to facilitate patient stay in the facility. We know this can be the preference of patients and their families, but it also reduces distress and risk of transferring a person to a hospital,” explained Dr Daniel Ong, Registrar.

For the COVID-19 response, the team has redeployed an extra Aged Care Registrar and a HMO to assist with dealing with the increased demand generated by anxiety over the new virus. The increase in medical staffing has meant that the team are now able to provide a seven-day-a-week full service.

“It’s an ongoing, evolving situation. The original setup was one registrar and four nurses. We are now the primary responders for any resident in those facilities in our catchment area to respond to a suspected case of COVID-19. When it all started, we didn’t know how many people we would end up seeing, but we did know that the virus can spread very rapidly,” Dr Ong said.

Furthermore, the team also assist nursing homes in terms of isolation practises and correct use of PPE, and so far haven’t had any diagnosed cases.

“The team has swabbed over 100 people. We get a phone call and we would go out as we have been trained to do COVID-19 swabs and bring specimens back. That is why we had to increase our staff numbers, both nursing and medical, with two registrars on board,” explained Kylie Muntz, Clinical Nurse Consultant.

Offering this service now seven days a week to support our community has led to a lot of positive feedback, as often the physical assessment is needed and telehealth in some cases is not a feasible option.

The team agree that what they enjoy most is supporting families, residents and staff, as well as getting a sense of relief from families that someone is looking after their elderly.

“We have a very lucky role as we are not in a hospital environment, but we are able to practice in the community. We are doing everything we know, and we are doing it out there in the community. It’s the best of both worlds, as we help patients in their own homes,” Kylie said.

The efforts of the team are showing fantastic results – in April there were over 600 face-to-face contacts compared to the usual of around 400, and the team have prevented 106 potential presentations to the Emergency Department, compared to the usual number of 30-35.

“This program is unique because it fills the service gap that exists between the GPs, nursing homes and our hospital services,” Dr Ong added.

Featured image (left to right): Kylie Muntz, Dr Daniel Ong, Anne Rutherford, Dr Bec Tai, Anne Dewey.

When the pandemic started, our Fever Clinic was quickly up and running to be able to test our community members and provide a local hub for everyone suspecting they might have the virus.

Madeleine Slaviero is a registered nurse who has been at Northern Health for three years, and is now a Fever Clinic nurse. Before the pandemic, she was a nurse on pool working at different campuses.

“When I first heard I would be working at the fever clinic I was a bit anxious, just because there was a lot of unknowns when it all started. Over time, I saw that we are well protected, in full PPE and now it just becomes like another day,” she said.

Madeleine now feels her experience as a Fever Clinic nurse turned out better than she expected.

“My typical day at Fever Clinic starts with a set-up before the crowds come and then I usually make sure we have enough stock to get through the day. Once the doors open, you never know who will come through and how busy we will be,” she explained.

As members of our community are really anxious about the current situation, calming them down and explaining the process is also a part of what the Fever Clinic nurses do.

“Because the testing criteria kept changing, people were initially confused and many of them thought that the ones tested positive for Covid-19 will end up in hospital or even worse. Just explaining that not everyone has a serious illness from this and reassuring the patients and helping them combat their fears and anxiety is having a positive impact on everyone,” she said.

Madeleine sees the Fever Clinic team as a close team working together and even though it has been a learning curve for everyone so far, she feels will still be learning in the months to come.

The team work is also something the Fever Clinic Manager, Natasha Knapic is proud of.

“The teamwork within the Fever Clinic has been outstanding. Staff have willingly gone to work in an area of the hospital where we are not only treating, but actively inviting, people who think they have COVID-19. It has been an honour to see the collaboration and respect within team interactions,” she said.

“I would just like to thank everyone for their hard work and persistence. It has been amazing to be part of such a valuable and inviting team,” Natasha added.

Roslyn Payne is responsible for the oversight of Fever Clinic, with assistance from Natasha Knapic as Manager, Mark Tang as Medical Advisor, Nursing Workforce, Clerical and Medical Workforce Units.

Some of the biggest challenges for both Natasha and Roslyn have been the changes of screening requirements and the significant fluctuations in demand for the service. The Fever Clinic staff is successfully managing those challenges, with the team looking out for each other.

“The staff that are working in the Clinic are amazing.  They are working in what can be a very stressful environment – where everyone possibly has COVID-19, yet every day they are positive and work together as a great team.  They look out for each other, making sure that their PPE is correct and are willing to train new staff into the environment,” Ros said.

“Thanks to everyone who has had a role in the establishment and delivery of the Fever Clinic service,” Ros added.

This week is Health Information Management Awareness Week, to honour and celebrate health information management (HIM) professionals and to raise awareness of the profession and the contribution that the health information workforce makes towards healthcare.

COVID-19 has highlighted the important role Health Information Services play in the health service’s response to the management and preparation for the pandemic.

“When the planning for this pandemic started, the Health Information Services (HIS) team’s first task was to look at their business continuity planning from the medical records perspective and ensure that they are able to continue this essential service,” explained Terri Fiorenza, Director Health Information Services.

Our Health Information Services include a number of different areas: general medical records, IPM, corporate records management, communication (reception and switch board) across all campuses, data sets reporting, coding, ward clerk workforce, ED clerical workforce, CPF and forms.

The HIS team has seen a number of changes in the last couple of weeks, from split teams on various locations at all campuses and part of the team working home, to changes in their usual reporting and coding.

“From the coding perspective, there have been new codes for COVID-19 patients. From the ward clerk perspective, we have been involved with assisting with the setup of the Fever Clinic and we provide clerical resources to that area as well. The clerks had to learn how to do the donning and doffing of PPE and that was quite new for them,” she said.

With the development of telehealth and patients moving to a new model of care, the HIS team have also looked at developing electronic and paper based forms which suit and match the telehealth environment.

Terri sees the biggest changes for the HIS team being the splitting into two teams and adapting to the new communication channels with staff members who work from home through MS Teams.

“Even with the challenges, the feedback has been good and the team keeps coming up with ideas, being engaged in the whole process from the start,” she said.

Terri has been at Northern Health for 23 years, and in her current role for 12 years and sees these times as an unprecedented event.

“This is definitely a once in a career situation we are experiencing. We have to think outside of the box and prepare for multiple scenarios. We have had to rely on technology more, work differently and had to explore working from home options for staff that don’t necessarily need to be on site,” she explained.

To mark HIM Awareness Week, our HIMs have shared why they chose this profession and what they enjoy most in their role. Please see the video below to find out:

 

Featured image (left to right): Shani Radford, David Mangano, Donna Trimble, Sonia Mastrilli, Raelene Hunter, Sandra Louws, Terri Fiorenza

In celebrating International Nurses Day this week, we share a story about one of our nurses, Stephanie Gray, who has a special connection with Northern Health.

Not only does her mother and sister also work as nurses at Northern Hospital, but she was delivered by Debra Bourne, our Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer.

“I was introducing graduate nurses in our lecture theatre and saw Steph at the back. I was the midwife for Steph and I was present at her birth and delivered her 24 years ago. It was an incredibly special moment to see her there,” Debra said.

Stephanie has been a Northern nurse since 2016. When she started her graduate year, she saw Debra as the Director of Nursing at the time.

“Our connection started in my country town, with Debra remembering my mum and the delivery. I now work in ED and the Neonatal Unit and I can say Debra is now my boss,” Steph said smiling.

While explaining the role of nursing during a pandemic, Debra said, “I am very proud of our nurses. This pandemic has demonstrated that nurses have the ability to step up, step into areas they usually don’t work in and develop new models of care, while keeping the humanity of patient care.”

“Many of our nurses are undertaking additional training and education to provide the best possible care for our patients, including over 300 nurses completing the education packages in respiratory care,” Debra added.

Thousands of nurses are undergoing special training to help fight the COVID-19 crisis. The skills they’re developing will not just save lives now, but have them better prepared for years to come. https://t.co/5zYfOfohG3 @LouisaCheatley #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/Jb0wgo6x3f

— 7NEWS Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) May 12, 2020