Northern Health is fortunate to receive donations from many volunteers in our community who knit and crotchet items that are given to various departments across the health service.

Fiddle-mitts are knitted cuffs or hand warmers which have different textures and materials attached, such as beads, ribbons and buttons, that people can hold and ‘twiddle’ with to help any restlessness or agitation that they might experience.

One of our latest donations was from the Sunbury Library Monday Knitting Group.

Their donation included a big bag of fiddle-mitts for patients at Northern Health.

Rebecca Lyall, one of our nurses in Ward 19 (pictured above with patient Zena), recently contacted our Volunteer Services team to see if some volunteers could help contribute to a quality project, that involves creating a sensory stimulation box.

The box will be filled with different items for patients who may need a distraction. These items can also be helpful for patients with delirium or dementia. Rebecca was thrilled with the donations of the fiddle-mitts.

The Sunbury knitters also hand-crafted some beautiful knee rugs, neck warmers and some bigger rugs. Glynis Marshall, who leads the Knitting Group, said her knitters have been very busy during COVID-19 lockdowns and were glad their contributions are of use.

Our Northern Health Knitting Guild volunteers continue to knit goods from home and have some new items to add to their stock. Head in to the Northern Health Foundation Office to view what is available, including lovely scarves and pom-pom beanies, as well as some AFL-themed baby booties and beanies.

All money raised from the sale of Knitting Guild items goes towards purchasing equipment for Northern Health. The Guild are aiming to purchase a sleeper chair for patient families.

DonateLife Week encourages Australians to register as organ and tissue donors, and to have the conversation with their family and friends.

Northern Health had the privilege of looking after seven patients and their families who very generously agreed to organ, eye and tissue donation in the last 12 months. The generosity of our Northern Health patients and families resulted in eight people on dialysis receiving kidney transplants, two people receiving life-saving double lung transplants, one person receiving a life-saving heart transplant, one person receiving a life-saving liver transplant and one person with diabetes receiving a pancreatic islet cell transplant.

“Countless other people benefitted from life-changing corneal and tissue transplants. We continue to be in awe of the generosity of people at one of the most distressing times of their lives when a loved one is dying,” says the Donation Specialist team of Dave Crosbie and Monica Dowling.

They say, “None of this is possible without the efforts of many people at Northern Health under the direction of our Designated Officer. The Officer ensures that every aspect of organ and tissue donation at Northern Health complies with all relevant legislation. The Emergency Department, the Intensive Care Unit and the Theatre Complex’s commitment to facilitating the wishes of donor patients and their families is remarkable.”

“Northern Hospital Theatre has earned a well-deserved reputation in the donation field for being ‘extraordinarily accommodating’. Northern Pathology, Radiology, the Echocardiography team, Cath Lab and Interventional Cardiologists are very responsive to the needs of our organ donation patients.”

“We would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you. It is very much appreciated,” says the team.

With a decrease in donation and transplantation activity during 2020 due to COVID-19, it’s never been more important to encourage Australians to register as organ and tissue donors.

There are around 13 million Australians aged over 16 who are eligible to register as an organ and tissue donor – but haven’t.

The Great Registration Race for DonateLife Week has set itself the goal of encouraging up to 100,000 more Australians to join the Australian Organ Donor Register.

The Great Registration Race runs all July and August. For more information on DonateLife Week, click here.

Featured Image: Dave Crosbie

Peter Brack, Associate Director – Education, Allied Health and Interprofessional Programs, is a self-confessed introvert. As he admits it is, “a bit weird given a central theme of my career has been ‘collaboration’.”

With a background in occupational therapy, Pete’s interest in Interprofessional Education (IPE) started over ten years ago when he was involved in two projects related to Interprofessional Education.

One of those projects called the Interprofessional Practice Placement, was the first interprofessional training ward set-up in Australia, and was focused on interprofessional teams of students, working to provide care to patients on sub-acute wards at Northern Health.

Pete says, “These projects delivered some great outcomes and really highlighted for me how much I enjoyed working in education.”

As someone who played team sport all his life, Pete says he was a bit surprised by the way the word ‘team’ was thrown around in healthcare without all of the core elements that he valued so much throughout his sporting life.

“Things like having a clearly defined common goal, mutual respect, a knowledge of each other’s strengths, and the camaraderie you get from knowing the people around you,” says Pete.

He believes “Interprofessional Education – which is when we learn with from and about one another – is the methodology we should use to create great teams.”

He says, “Working collaboratively has so many benefits in terms of patient safety, quality of care and efficiency, but it has also been shown to improve morale, reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction which makes it a no-brainer for me.”

During his time as Allied Health Clinical School Coordinator, Pete was able to follow his interest in IPE to publish his first journal article and complete some research on a new resource he created with his education colleagues, called the Interprofessional Passport.

Pete and his team are working towards relaunching a more digitally enabled version of the Interprofessional Passport, based on over ten years of experience of running interprofessional programs.

The Interprofessional Passport will facilitate interprofessional learning opportunities for students and new graduate clinicians to improve client and patient outcomes via collaborative practice.

The Interprofessional Passport is described as a ‘framework that will help you start to look beyond what is familiar, it will make you reflect on what is happening around you. It will help you understand your own role better in the context of a team and we hope it will help us move further towards our goal of high functioning interprofessional teams.’

The passport has been designed to facilitate interprofessional learning within a clinical context based on learner identified needs. The learner, in consultation with their supervisors, will tailor a program suitable to the learner’s needs. It is hoped that this resource may be incorporated into orientation programs for staff in the future.

The over- arching learning outcomes for the user will be the ability to articulate a deeper understanding and appreciation for one’s own professional role and to share profession-specific knowledge with all members of the interprofessional team to enhance team collaboration.

Continuing with his sport analogy, Pete says, “Great teams train together – a lot of what happens in healthcare would be like a basketball team training, by all separately shooting at different baskets.”

“I believe if we can find opportunities to train together, it will have a positive impact on the way our teams function and in turn the care we provide to our patients.”

Our COVID-19 testing clinics at Northern Hospital Epping and Craigieburn Centre have hit a significant milestone of 200,000 presentations through the clinics.

Elisha O’Dowd, Acting Project Manager COVID-19 Clinics and Entry Screening, said the testing clinics opened in early March 2020 in response to the increasing demand for COVID-19 testing in our community, and since then, the program has evolved with the fluctuating needs of the pandemic.

“This year, Craigieburn and Epping have been hit hard with multiple exposure sites in our local area, so they have each completed over 40,000 tests since January,” Elisha said.

“We are very proud of the resilience and teamwork shown by all the nurses, clerical staff, security and traffic controllers, who work tirelessly in wind, rain, hail, cold and heat to bring this vital service to our community.”

Colin Pham, Molecular Senior Scientist, said the Northern Health Pathology team processes between 400 to 500 tests per day during “regular times”, but has peaked to 1,200 tests during the current surge in testing.

“We operate between 7 am – 11.30 pm seven days a week. The Molecular Lab has two staff members on each shift with a total team of eight. They have gone above and beyond, including taking on extra shifts at short notice and staying back late to ensure that COVID-19 results are released in a timely manner.”

“Our testing surge comes in waves. In the previous surge in late May, early June, we released over 1,500 results per day well within 24 hours. During these times, the laboratory often processes close to 100 specimens per hour. To facilitate rapid contact tracing, the laboratory often receives requests to prioritise specimens from high risk patients. We often need to pick out these priority samples from a sea of specimens.”

“Our Molecular Department came into existence in April 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and has exceeded all expectations. This is due to the teamwork and commitment of all involved, in particular the Molecular and COVID-19 registration team. I am especially proud and honoured to be working with such a dynamic and dedicated crew. ”

Thank you to our hard working staff, nurses, traffic controllers, Pathology team and everyone who has come forward for testing. Together, you have all played an important role in keeping our community safe.

Northern Health urges anyone, even with the mildest of symptoms, to get tested. For more information, visit nh.org.au/coronavirus.

Featured image: Nurses and traffic controllers celebrating 200,000 COVID-19 tests

“I feel like I am at the 42 kilometre mark of a marathon, with only a few hundred metres to go!” Says Tracey Wyllie, Peri Operative Services Manager – Surgical Services.

She is talking about the new theatre recovery area, which opened on Monday.

Called the Post Anaesthetic Care Unit (PACU), the new theatre recovery area opened earlier this week as part of Stage 2 of the Northern Hospital Expansion Project.

Tracey is excited as, “it enables us to deliver quality care in an environment that the team is really proud of and proud to work in.”

The new unit has expanded its care to 20 patients and boasts a dedicated bay for high dependency patients requiring acute care.

Tracey explains this will be a dedicated space to care for patients who need to be ventilated post-surgery.

The team Tracey refers to, came together from the planning stages and comprises members of the Central Sterilising Storage (CSSD), Nurse Unit Managers, Registered Nurses (RN) along with instrument and theatre technicians.

There were a lot of considerations involved, explains Tracey, including relocation planning, model of care and operational readiness guidelines.

“It’s been a long journey, with a lot of work from a lot of people,” says Tracey.

Linda Romano, Divisional Director Nursing, Surgical Services says, she is proud of Tracey and her team, and adds, “It is really rewarding to see the hard work the working group have put in, with all their planning to ensure that staff and patients have a workable and safe environment to look after our community.”

Featured image shows left to right Tracey Wyllie, Jeanette Atme, Linda Romano and Natasha Josevski

A key aspect of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Project at Northern Health is to ensure the needs of clinical staff are met.

Meeting these needs means our patients will receive the safest, most efficient care.

Here we chat to some of the staff members working on this goal from areas such as the Emergency Department (ED) and Surgery.

Stacey Williamson, whose role in the project is Clinical Lead – Emergency, has a wealth of experience from working as a Clinical Nurse Educator in the Emergency Department.

Bringing with her extensive clinical and working knowledge of the ED and previous project experience, Stacey says, “As the clinical lead for the ED, my role is to work with the ED team to ensure the EMR meets the needs of the clinical staff and ensure a smooth transition.”

Duncan Wellington, EMR Analyst – Emergency Department, is new to Northern Health and has worked in past roles that span from ICU Nurse to Cerner Trainer to Clinical Analyst.

“I have a knowledge of the Cerner EMR both from a ‘backend’ build perspective and the ‘end user’ experience, that I can apply to assist with the creation of an EMR that is tailored to Northern Health requirements,” Duncan explained.

“The digital transformation of the organisation will, at times, be challenging both for the EMR project team and the organisation and I hope to support this to the best of my ability,” Duncan added.

Looking at the EMR from a Surgery and Anaesthesia lens are Jeramie Carson and Fey Bakar.

Jeramie, EMR Surgery and Anaesthesia Lead, has worked at Northern Health for approximately 18 months as the Elective Surgery Access Manager.

She brings with her extensive management and operating room experience to contribute to the successful development and implementation of the EMR at Northern Health.

Fey, EMR Analyst – Surgery and Anaesthesia, has worked as a registered nurse in the Northern Hospital General Operating Theatre and also as an Associate Nurse Unit Manager at Ian Brand Residential Care at Bundoora Centre.

“I believe my role as an EMR Analyst for Surgery and Anaesthesia will draw upon all my previous experiences, most especially being an ‘end user’ of Cerner. Also, my understanding of the workflow of the perioperative department will enhance a great delivery of the EMR project and make it clinically usable for the end users, ultimately improving the journey of patients coming through the perioperative department,” she explained.

We look forward to staff working with the project team to ensure the EMR meets the needs of clinicians, so we can provide the highest quality care to our community.

For more information on the Northern Health EMR Project, head to our EMR website.

Featured image (left to right): Fey Bakar, Stacey Williamson, Duncan Wellington, Jeramie Carson

The Melbourne Medical School’s Strategic Grants for Outstanding Women, offered biennially, is designed to assist high-performing, early to mid-career women in academia, negotiate some of the challenges faced as they pursue career progression towards senior academic and leadership roles.

This year’s recipients include Dr Leonie Griffiths from the Department of Medical Education, Melbourne Medical School and Northern Health. Leonie is Chair of the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences Clinical Placements Committee, and a member of the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Portfolio.

In granting the award, Melbourne Medical School recognized that through her work, Dr Griffiths ‘facilitates curriculum design that enhances students’ integration of their learning experiences to increase their readiness to practice. ‘

The grant will enable Dr Griffiths to pursue her research interests in a practice-led pedagogy that optimises workplace learning. It will enable her to design innovative curriculum that will prime learners for the clinical environment of the twentieth-first century, and to make a leading contribution to the research on Work Integrated Learning.

Dr Griffiths says she is honoured to receive this grant, “As medical education research is critical to improving the quality of patient care, through graduating doctors who are humanistic, culturally competent and flexible to practice excellent health care in a multidiscipline team.”

Dr Griffiths has worked for Northern Health since 2010. With a background in General Practice, she initially worked in the After Hours Clinic in the Emergency Department and was the GP Liaison Consultant. During this time she developed a passion for education and joined the Northern Clinical School, University of Melbourne, of which she is now the Director.

Says Leonie, “I feel like I have the perfect job. I have the privilege of working in the Renal Clinic with a dedicated team of clinicians, nurses and allied health practitioners, caring for patients with complex chronic disease while also having the opportunity to influence the experience of medical students learning from patients and staff.”

“My research is in the area of work integrated learning which considers ways to best prepare health professional students for the complexities of workplace learning and practice.”

“I’m interested in how educators can promote students to be efficient, self regulated learners in an environment that is high stakes and prioritises service to patients. Work based learning pedagogy focuses on priming and promoting development of skills and professional identity through authentic clinical experiences and assessment.”

Leonie says Northern Health patients provide great motivation for her. She describes them as “generous and trusting, and being part of their healthcare journey is immensely satisfying. Remaining curious is a trait that I often talk to students about, it helps drive reflection and improve practice.”

“Staff at Northern Health are also incredibly supportive of the clinical school, the students love their time in the hospital, finding the culture welcoming and inclusive. There’s no going back once you’ve made a connection with the North!”

You see them cheerfully going about their work, which includes ensuring our health service complies with the Department of Health, Cleaning Standards for Public Health Facilities. COVID-19 further underlined the importance of the role they play in keeping our patients and community safe. See our story here.

They also assist in other ways such as transferring patients, equipment, urgent bloods, mail, and medical records.

They are our Patient Services Assistants (PSA’s).

Earlier this week a handful of them follow Wendy Nicol, Operations Manager, PSA and Cleaning Service Contracts, to the courtyard near Allied Health unsure of what to expect. Seeing Debra Bourne, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer there, further piques their curiosity.

Bill Petrovski, PSA says, “When Wendy told me, ‘you have to work tomorrow’, I wondered what’s going on? What’s going to happen? At the same time I was excited!”

Steve Carnell, CARPS Supervisor, is in on the secret.

It’s the Shine Awards – where we recognise our PSA’s who actively live and role model the Northern Health values of safe, kind and together. He has nominated Kerrie Lazarra, one of his protégés, for the ‘Together’ award.

As Debra presents the awards, he is pleased to see Kerrie recognised for her “amazing work with students making their experience so much better.”

Steve says, “She goes the extra mile to ensure they have a positive experience at Northern.”

Bill too is recognised, along with Morty Kathiramoothiya, in this same category for their work in preparing for Accreditation. Wendy says, they went over and beyond and “nothing was too hard for them.”

It wasn’t only the PSA’s at Northern Hospital Epping who were recognised at the second Shine Awards for 2021.

Mary Scicluna, PSA at Bundoora Centre, wins the ‘Safe’ award for ‘focusing on the correct protocols at all times.’

Her nominators, Mustafa Tus and Faye Parra, describe Mary as “very organised and works well with the staff.”

There still remained one more category to be announced, and that is the ‘Kindness’ Award.

Much to his surprise, it is Steve who is announced as the winner in this category.

Says Wendy, “Steve has worked tirelessly to ensure that the students all receive a thorough and professional experience at Northern Health. His attitude towards the program is second to none and he shows nothing but kindness to all students.”

Which brings us to yet another role of the PSA’s (and in particular Steve), alluded to above, and that is to provide placement training for students following the Certificate III in Health Services Assistance at various universities and TAFEs.

Matthew Moore was one such trainee, which we shared in in our story here.

“Steve was an awesome trainer; he’s passed on his knowledge,” says Mathew.

“It was very unexpected,” says Steve on winning the award and adds, “It is credit to all the PSA’s who do all the hard work.”

(Which makes us wonder if perhaps there should be yet another award category – an award for Modesty and Unassuming Service? A trait that Steve has in common with a lot of our other PSA’s?)

Please join us in congratulating the winners – and in applauding the tireless work of all our PSA’s.

“We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to tell anybody it does.
Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to call attention to their shining – they just shine.” – Dwight L. Moody

 

Pictured above: Wendy Nicol, Steve Carnell, Kerrie Lazarra, Bill Petrovski and Debra Bourne.

Absent: Morty Kathiramoothiya and Mary Scicluna.