In 2019, growth in demand for Northern Health’s services continued, and we’ve recognised that we can’t do things the same way we have in the past.  That why we’ve established a new Staying Well program to help supporting and caring for patients at home, so that not all patients need to come into hospital.

We’ve established and strengthened partnerships to provide care together with local primary health care networks, community health services, Aboriginal health organisations, Women’s Health in the North and local government. Staying Well be a strong focus for us during 2020.

In addition to our outreach and partnerships, we know we need additional hospital capacity.  We are building Stage 2 of the Northern Hospital redevelopment that will provide an additional 96 beds and three new operating theatres, including a hybrid theatre, new kitchen and other facilities to support patient care.

We will continue to expand, with planning for the two new community hospitals in Craigieburn and the City of Whittlesea promised by the Victorian Government at the November 2018 state election.

Mental Health services will be another key focus in the New Year.  Three weeks ago we received the interim report of the Mental Health Royal Commission which has recommended establishing additional bed capacity to meet the mental health demand in growth areas like ours – plus hospital outreach services for attempted suicide patients.

We have much to be proud of including continuing to provide timely care to our community, and our examination pass rates have been very good, resulting from our investment and commitment to teaching and training.

Our next Accreditation assessment survey under the National Standards will be in May 2020.  I appreciate all the work being done both in clinical and non-clinical areas in preparation for the survey – reinforcing our strong focus and commitment on quality and safety.

As we approach Christmas and the holiday season please be safe, enjoy the festivities, and use the opportunity to refresh yourself. I also would like to acknowledge those of you who will continue to work over the festive season to ensure our patients receive the care they need.

Thank you for the work you do in supporting our patients and our community.

On behalf of the Executive we look forward to seeing you in the New Year – healthy, relaxed and happy.

Siva Sivarajah

Chief Executive

This year, there have been a number of nursing and midwifery achievements that I have been proud of.

The first would be the Graduate Nurses and Midwives Quality Projects, with over 130 projects completed and their posters displayed in the corridors at the Northern Hospital. There was real depth within these projects, and they provided a good insight into quality and safety issues that these graduates had identified. But in addition, there was also a demonstration of some really innovative ideas that have now been embedded into practice.

This year there was an increased number of  nurses and midwives that were involved in Research Week, and I was really impressed with the quality of the research that they had been involved in. This is a significant increase compared to last years and shows the progression of nursing and midwifery research at Northern Health.

Nurses and midwives have continued to demonstrate leadership within many projects across the organisation. This includes the flu immunisation campaign, the work with strengthening Northern Health’s response to family violence, transition to the new ICU and the significant work that has occurred in our sub-acute section with reducing falls and pressure injuries just to name a few.

The nursing and midwifery education team have continued to develop and deliver new education programs with three new STEP programs developed and an increasing number of post graduate programs offered.

I believe that is one of the many reasons why we are attracting high quality nursing staff to Northern Health. We currently have a waiting list of nurses who would like to work here.

Another highlight is the scholarships that have been offered to nurses, with the help of the Northern Health Foundation and Health Professional Bank. Twenty nurses attended Safer Care Victoria conference ‘Giant Steps’, and we recently had an opportunity to hear about the lessons they learnt.

We have many nurses and midwives participating and are the project leads  for Safer Care Victoria collaborative. This includes delirium, preventing readmission following paediatric tonsillectomy, reducing third and fourth degree tears and reducing still births. Their leadership within these important projects which are already demonstrating and improvement for our patients has been impressive.

I was pleased to see Prof Brian Dolan at Northern Health three times this year to facilitate and lead discussion about not only how we can improve the patient experience, but also about how we can all have a greater awareness about how we work as a with our colleagues. There was significant positive feedback from Brian about our staff, and he really engaged and inspired them.

Next year is a significant , with 2020 being declared the International Year of the Nurse. I am looking forward to organising numerous events and celebrations with nurses and midwives across Northern Health.

Have a great holiday period!

Debra Bourne
Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer

 

 

Twenty nurses from Northern Health have participated in Safer Care Victoria’s ‘Giant Steps’ Conference.

Health Professionals Bank supported Northern Health’s nursing workforce to attend the Giant Steps Conference to further education opportunities for our nurses and midwives.

Debra Bourne, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, selected 20 staff to receive the grant to attend the ‘Giant Steps’. She said our nurses had an opportunity to network and learn about the latest trends in quality improvement, emerging health challenges, leadership, delivering high-quality care.

“Thank you for the support from the Northern Health Foundation and the Health Professionals Bank for this scholarship. It was great to hear the nurses present their learnings to a wider audience at Northern Hospital. They have really demonstrated enthusiasm and drive obtained from that conference,” she said.

This Safer Care Victoria Conference aims to look at finding a better, safer way to deliver health care, by combining high-profile, inspirational keynotes, practical masterclasses, workshops and networking events to deliver a different experience.

Stephanie Shears, one of the nurses who attended said the ‘Giant Steps’ conference for her was an incredible learning opportunity she will never forget.

“As a young Graduate nurse beginning my career as a nurse, I learnt the importance of quality care and improvement in all aspects of healthcare and was inspired to always strive to deliver the best care possible. But not only that, it also taught me that there is always opportunity for further research and improvement in all aspects of health care. I now strive to become a leader in the nursing field and a quality and safety advocate for all of my patients and colleagues in future. I will definitely be attending the next GS conference to learn more about the incredible work being done all over Victoria,“ she said.

 

Recently, three young members of the community decided to give back and raise money for their local hospital.

Year 3 students, Mischa, Sara & Victoria from St Catherine’s Primary School in Lalor West organised and ran their own fundraising stall after writing to the Northern Health Foundation about wanting to help.

Their letter said, “We would like to let you know that in Term 3, we are going to put on a shop to raise money for the Northern Health Foundation. Some of the things we will be selling are posters, origami peacocks, origami mice and chatter boxes.”

“Northern Hospital is our local hospital and we would love to help in any way. We are looking forward to donating.”

Through their fundraising efforts, Mischa, Sara and Victoria raised a total of $92.20, which will go towards the Foundation’s current defibrillator campaign.

When asked about their motivation behind fundraising, the three primary school students had various reasons to why they wanted to make a difference.

Mischa said, “I like to help other people and I have allergies so I know what it’s like.”

Sara said, “To help all the people that have a hard time in the hospital.”

Victoria said, “I wanted to raise money for the Northern Health Foundation because they helped me fix my fractured finger.”

“Northern Health Foundation would like to thank Mischa, Sara and Victoria, three inspirational young students, for helping fundraise in support of Northern Hospital Epping. Each one of them had a special reason to give back to their community and local hospital which is inspiring,” said Northern Health Foundation Director, Yvonne Amos.

Featured Image (left to right): Mischa Necovski, Sara Vata, Victoria Terziiski

The time has come to announce the winner of the 2019 Northern Health Foundation Raffle!

Drawn today in the foyer of Northern Hospital, staff, volunteers and visitors gathered in anticipation to find out who will be the winner of a brand new Hyundai Kona.

The Kona has been on display in the Northern Hospital foyer for the last few months, creating a lot of buzz and excitement about who will drive it away – and Christmas came early for one lucky person!

And the major prize winner is….Ivanna P! (Ticket No. 4377)

The other lucky prize winners are:

2nd Prize – Trip for two to Cairns: Nicole C (Ticket No. 0005)

3rd Prize – Samsung Smart TV: Margaret O (Ticket No. 0289)

4th Prize – Mantra Epping Voucher: Hatice R (Ticket No. 0085)

The raffle this year has been incredibly successful, with 1,304 tickets sold, funds raised supporting the purchase of an additional emergency accommodation property for Northern Health patient families who travel long distances to be with their loved ones in hospital.

Northern Health Foundation Director, Yvonne Amos, said, “the support from our major sponsor, Maxxia, who provided the Hyundai Kona as first prize, and our other sponsors, Helloworld, Eziway, Mantra Epping and South Morang Hyundai, provides a wonderful opportunity for us to raise funds. The campaign has been a joint effort by our partners, staff and the northern community who have all come together in support of Northern Health Foundation.”

Thank you to everyone who purchased tickets and contributed, and a special thank you to the dedicated volunteers who spent many hours selling tickets across our sites.

Featured Image (left to right): Peter McWilliam (Northern Health Foundation Board Member), Tim Bond (Maxxia), Kerrie McWilliam, Siva Sivarajah (Northern Health Chief Executive), Pina Di Donato (Northern Health Foundation Board Deputy Chair), Laurie Fitzpatrick (Whittlesea Freemasons Lodge), Graeme Webb (Whittlesea Freemasons Lodge), Val Webb. 

The Library Service Team has been well recognised this year with multiple awards for their dedication to Northern Health.

Library Manager, Kathryn Rough, won the award for ‘Above and Beyond’ during our most recent Quarterly Staff Recognition Award Ceremony, for always going that extra mile.

“It’s in a librarian’s nature to be helpful and it’s very rewarding to assist staff or students with their enquiries, to give them the correct answer to their question. Some enquiries can take a few minutes to answer but most can take hours or days to research and disseminate,” she said.

“If we can help the allied health team gain research funding for a stroke intervention, help a nurse finalise their PhD reference list or assist a junior doctor to access guidelines via their mobile device, then it’s been a good day!” she added.

Kathryn has worked at Northern Health for six years in her role, and says her favourite part about working here is her colleagues.

“I know this gets mentioned a lot but it really is the people who work and study at Northern Health. We have so many innovative staff that work here who are doing strong research and trying to make a real difference for our patients,” she said.

In addition to Kathryn’s award, the entire library service team, comprising of Kathryn and library technicians, Janice Gauci and Kelly Chan, recently won the Annual Staff Excellence Award at the 2019 Northern Health Annual General Meeting.

The library team received multiple nominations by their colleagues, one of which was from Quality Coordinator, Sarah Rexhepi, who said, “Kathryn and her team always help every single person that walks in the library and they do so much research for the doctors and anyone that asks them. They always go above and beyond to help – they are the YES team and I think they should be recognised for their great work!”

Janice and Kelly agreed winning the award was special as it meant their hard work was appreciated.

“It was lovely to have the work we do be recognised by the health service, because customer service is really important to us and that’s reflected in Kathryn and the tone she sets for the whole library – we follow that through and do so with our interactions with staff and clients,” they said.

“We’re a small team, and all of us work well with each other and we work really hard to support the study and research needs of all the staff here.”

Kathryn added, “I know this sounds cheesy but it really has made me feel humble to be recognised. It has also made me realise that I have the most amazing team in Janice and Kelly. Together, we have assisted so many of our staff and students in finding and accessing the best evidence for their practice.”

To hear more about the library team, check out the video below!

Featured Image (left to right): Kathryn Rough, Kelly Chan and Janice Gauci 

Northern Health has partnered with Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network and DPV Health to pilot an integrated, multidisciplinary health care model targeting diabetes, called ‘Staying Well with Diabetes in the North.’

The project team, along with Dr. Suresh Varadarajan, Head of Endocrine Services and Briana Baass, Chief Allied Health Officer and Partnerships, met with some of the GPs, Dr Kashif Murtaza and Dr Syed Arif Ahmed, at Mill Park GP Super Clinic, DPV Health, to highlight the service pilot which commenced on Tuesday, 10 December.

Briana explained the ‘Staying Well with Diabetes in the North’ project is a multi-streamed service that has been collaboratively developed and implemented using a phased approached to achieve its intended outcomes. The multi-disciplinary wraparound service in the community will include a Northern Health Endocrinologist going out to community health services, with the aim to reduce the need for patients to attend appointments at the hospital.

“This will enable a collaborative service, in particular with simultaneous collaborative planning including the patient, DNE and Endocrinologist together. Also, it will enable knowledge transfer between acute and community services, and moves the intervention up-stream (type 2 diabetes in scope) with the intention to reduce the rising risk population,” Briana said.

Catarina Hart, Ambulatory Care Diabetes Coordinator, said type 2 diabetes is linked to a number of serious health conditions often resulting in unplanned hospital admissions.

“This project will help support those with type 2 diabetes in our community and reduce their need to go to hospital,” she added.

Dr. Suresh Varadarajan Head of Endocrine Services, Northern Health, said, “The number of people in our catchment diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes is increasing. Despite our excellent results from our HARP and other diabetes programs, this is an area in which we can do more to keep our community well and out of hospital.”

Collaborative health care models are reported to reduce the likelihood of health system fragmentation and in turn likely to result in improved health outcomes for persons living with chronic and complex diseases. This first stream of the Staying Well with Diabetes in the North, together with planned further streams, strives to enhance our collaborative partnerships with our existing partners as well as establish new, non-traditional partners to help us achieve our shared vision for enhancing health and wellbeing in the north.

“This project offers us a unique opportunity to challenge ourselves in terms of using true partnerships to achieve system transformation. It allows us as a system to provide holistic, connected care out in the community. It helps us to shift our focus upstream; and that is very exciting for people living in the north,” Briana added.

 

Featured image (left to right): Kathryn Cirone (DPV Health, Team Leader – Wellbeing Advisory Services) Janet Rahman (DPV Health, DNE)  Dr. Suresh Varadarajan (Northern Health, Head of Endocrine Services), Dr Syed Arif Ahmed (DPV Health, GP), Dr Kashif Murtaza( DPV Health, GP), Allison Mason( DPV Health, Practice Nurse), Catarina Hart (Northern Health, Ambulatory Care Diabetes Coordinator), Briana Baass (Northern Health, Chief Allied Health Officer and Partnerships) and Caitlyn Brennan (Northern Health, Project Manager).

The Dialysis Unit at Broadmeadows Hospital have received a new blanket warmer machine, kindly donated to the Northern Health Foundation by the Australian Lions Foundation, Lions Club of Glenroy and Glenroy RSL.

Lindsay Knight, President of the Lions Club of Glenroy explained one of the members was contacted by Vicki Vernon, a Broadmeadows volunteer, whose husband Alan Vernon was a dialysis patient and sadly lost his life following a long battle with kidney disease.

“She explained the need for the hospital to have a blanket warmer, its benefits and value it brings to the patients. We brought it to the board meeting and everyone thought it would be a great idea,” he explained.

The Lions Club raises funds though BBQs at Bunnings and a Christmas raffle at Broadmeadows Shopping Centre.

“Luckily, we had some money and our Australian Lions Foundation provides funds to cause worthy purposes. Every dollar that our club raises, they would match. Also, the RSL donated a $1,000 towards the cause,” he explained.

Rosemary Kerr from Glenroy RSL thought this would be a great project, as they raise money for the community as well.

“A lot of our members come here for dialysis and rehabilitation, so that is one of the reasons why we supported this initiative.”

Rosemary added that she has a special interest in the place, as she was a member of the committee that set the hospital up.

“We bought the land in 1999 for one dollar,” she said.

Yvonne Amos, Director, Northern Health Foundation, said the donation of a blanket warmer in memory of Alan, by Lions Club Glenroy, Glenroy RSL and Lions Club Foundation will greatly improve the level of comfort for our patients during dialysis treatment at Broadmeadows Hospital.

“To be able to bring the donors onto the ward to talk first hand with patients about their treatment experience and what it means to receive a warm blanket was humbling for all in attendance.  Thank you again to all involved, especially Vicki Vernon who supported the project in memory of her husband Alan,” she added.

 

Featured image (left to right): Rosemary Kerr Lions Club of Glenroy & Glenroy RSL; Grant Taylor, Cheryl Rofe, Susan Pike from Northern Health; Jeff Thomas, Member of Lions Club of Glenroy;  Vicki Vernon, Volunteer; Lindsay Knight, President Lions Club of Glenroy; Barb Kenny, Member of Lions Club of Glenroy.