Northern Health is committed to a workplace culture that fosters diversity and equality. To help support our vision of a healthier community, our staff and volunteers reflect the community that we serve, and are supported by a workplace which is inclusive and empowers everyone to contribute their best.

“When we talk about diversity at Northern Health, we recognise and celebrate the many people who use and deliver our services. Their different characteristics, backgrounds, abilities, beliefs and needs create unique opportunities and challenges,” said Michelle Fenwick, Executive Director, People and Culture.

“However, it is not enough to acknowledge and celebrate diversity. When we talk about inclusion, we are committing to work with this diversity, creating an open, respectful culture and directly involving people at all stages of their health care.”

“Our goal at Northern Health is to reflect the diverse community we serve and create a workplace where everyone feels included. We will embrace the individual skills, experiences and perspectives that our staff bring and harness these to deliver an improved patient experience and service delivery,” Michelle said.

Emiliano Zucchi, Director, Transcultural and Language Services, said, “To me, diversity is synonymous with human being because we are all diverse in one or many ways. Some types of diversity  are overt, others less so, but they are all deserving of the deepest respect. Diversity makes us unique, the more diverse we are as a society, the more familiar with the ‘other’ we become, the richer human beings we become.”

“Often racism, sexism or any kind of prejudice is triggered by lack of education, lack of exposure to different cultures, to different ways of doing things,” Emilano said.

Karen Bryant, Senior Aboriginal Liaison Officer, said Narrun Wilip-giin is saddened by the racial injustices highlighted recently across the world and in Aboriginal Australians daily lives.

“Australia is a very multi-cultural country, people’s differences and the colour of their skin should be irrelevant and everyone should be treated with respect, irrespective of culture or religion,” said Karen.

“The colour of your skin should not be a crime! It’s time to make the change. If you get this right for Aboriginal people, then you get it right for everyone!”

Northern Health’s Volunteer Raffle is on once again! Funds raised will go towards helping our most precious and vulnerable babies through the purchase of a special medication fridge for our Maternity and Special Care Units to store breast milk.

Michelle Morrow, Nurse Unit Manager for Maternity, says, “Northern Health is committed to supporting women with achieving breastfeeding for their infants. Our dedicated staff assist following the birth of every baby at Northern Health, and in the event problems arise, our specialist lactation consultants are here to advise. The importance of expressed breast milk has been well researched and we encourage women to express and utilise our storage facilities where possible. Our new breastfeeding fridge will ensure that the milk is stored safely and securely for future feeds.”

Ticket purchases for the raffle are a little different due to COVID-19, and while you would normally see our smiling volunteers selling tickets in our foyers, this year raffle ticket purchases have moved online.

“As our volunteers cannot be here in person to sell raffle tickets, they would be chuffed to know that their fundraising raffles are being supported by staff.  We can’t wait to have our volunteers back on site to do all the great things they do that make a huge difference to our health service,” said Henni Wade, Manager, Volunteers Services.

There are some great prizes –with the first prize being a Mother and Baby gift basket proudly donated by Coolkidz, valued at $575.

We encourage our staff and community to support our volunteers and our health service by purchasing a ticket for their current raffle!

Tickets are just $5 each, and you can purchase tickets here: https://www.rafflelink.com.au/northernhealthraffle.

Adds Michelle, “Our maternity unit staff are passionate about providing the best patient experience for each of our new and returning families. We look forward to our new breastfeeding fridge and are very grateful to our volunteers and Northern Health Foundation for this initiative.”

Featured picture shows (from L to R): Michelle Morrow, Nurse Unit Manager for Maternity, with mum Natalie Rule and baby Emma and Debra, PSA.

Thrive – Staff Wellbeing, the new name for Northern Health’s wellbeing program launches today.

Northern Health’s wellbeing program has been running for nearly three years, and over that period the OHS and Wellbeing team have been able to implement some great offerings for staff.

“What we felt was that we really wanted to brand those offerings, and did a survey with staff around what they would like to call our wellbeing program – and Thrive was selected,” said Alison O’Sullivan, Wellbeing Coordinator.

Thrive is a familiar, very positive word and is often used in positive psychology. It encourages people to be the best version of themselves, which aligns with what this wellbeing program is about.

Current offerings through Thrive include TREAT rest and recovery sessions and yoga sessions (currently online via MS Teams). Thrive also coordinate a number of annual wellness events, including ED Wellbeing Week, Conversations on Mental Wellness Week in September, and the team supports CrazySocks4Docs day.

Staff can view all the current offerings on the Thrive intranet page and book into available sessions.

This new intranet page aims to be a resource that staff can regularly access to book into sessions and will continue to grow over time.  It also has numerous links, resources and information on mental health support programs – including a Wellbeing Toolkit.

“There is also a 15-minute exercise challenge, starting on 22 June. I’d like to encourage all staff to participate. All you need to do is register here and log your progress online.  Physical wellbeing is an important part of maintaining your overall health.  You can form teams and there are prizes throughout,” Alison explained.

The OHS& Wellbeing team is open to suggestions around improvements and offerings in the staff wellbeing area. If you have an idea, feel free to email ohswb@nh.org.au.

Update 2 July 2020: Due to the current COVID-19 developments, Northern Health’s Hack Weekend has been postponed.

What the Hack? – Northern Health’s inaugural hack weekend is scheduled for 11-12 July 2020, and will be held both face-to-face at NCHER and virtually, via MS Teams. It will take place over two full days, 9 am-6 pm, with optional evening sessions.

What the Hack? brings together Northern Health staff who have a problem to solve within their work area, and ‘techies’ of all descriptions, from students and gurus, app and software developers, data professionals, designers and other digital wizzes, to work together over a weekend and create exciting solutions and products.

“The main idea behind the event is to engage the community in supporting Northern Health to re-imagine our future through new digital solutions. Our staff will present problems and engage the community who have the skills to support us to develop those in a short timeframe,” explained Penelope Grellet, Director – Trust, Diversity and Engagement. 

“In the current environment, we need to think about innovative ways to communicate with our community and the hack weekend offers an opportunity to start that conversation,” explained Anthony Gust, Director, Data Science and Analytics.

Ed Savill, Operations Director, added the Northern Health is looking for three big ideas to solve during the hack weekend. These ideas need to have a technical solution, or a major component, for our tech community to be able to help.

“Because of COVID-19 pandemic and the need to deliver healthcare differently, considering ongoing physical distancing and the feedback we have from patients asking for more care to be delivered virtually, we’ve decided to organise the hack weekend. We are looking for the three problems that our patients and clinicians face that virtual healthcare may help be part of the answer for. Remember the theme is ‘Supporting Northern Health to re-imagine and transform healthcare, using digital solutions, in the new world’, he explained.

Ariana Carrodus, Project Manager explained all Northern Health staff can participate in the hack weekend in a variety of roles.

“Those who have an idea to pitch can do so via Ideas Scale, while there is an opportunity for others to help with running the event or providing advice on the spot on whether solutions work in “real-life scenarios”. And if you have tech skills – you can be part of the digital solution and work closely with the community experts,” she said.

Those who have pitched ideas and are selected for the hack weekend are expected to participate in both days of the weekend and pitch their idea to the community.

To find more about different roles at the event, please click here. If you are can’t wait to roll up your sleeves and get involved, please click here to register.

If you have more questions, please have a look at our FAQ page or email Ariana and the team at hackweekend@nh.org.au.

Keep an eye on our social media for the video below, and share with your friends and connections. Who knows, one of your “geek” friends might join the hack weekend!

Please see the promo video below:

Today, Northern Health celebrates CrazySocks4Docs Day, encouraging all staff to wear their most colourful socks and start the conversation around mental health.

Dr John Ferguson, Chief Medical Officer, explained the catalyst behind the event.

“Dr Geoff Toogood, founder of the movement, was self-managing depression and feeling he could not seek help because that was not the “done thing” for doctors. One day, he put on two totally different socks and a senior colleague questioned his sanity,” said John.

“That gave cause for pause and the advent of this day to recognise and destigmatise mental health in general, and in doctors specifically. Extrapolating this, it is recognition of diversity in many aspects of our lives and a bit of lightheartedness to raise awareness and promote support.”

This year, our doctors received a generous donation from a local small business, Soxy Beast, who have generously donated 1,000 crazy socks for our Northern Health doctors!

Dr Edwina Holbeach, Director of Physician training explained they were originally looking at sourcing a sock supplier to provide as gifts to our medical staff to say thank you and to coincide with CrazySocks4Docs Day.

“We decided to approach Soxy Beast as they are a local company – we explained what type of socks we needed, asked for a quote, they replied saying they would like to very generously donate them. We are glad we found this company, as it has a very strong social ethics and they are linked with local artists and Melbourne charities,” she said.

Giuliano Pietrolungo, from Soxy Beast, said, “We’ve always believed that businesses should exist for a purpose greater than ‘just to make money’, it is in the very essence of our business model. The CrazySocks4Docs Day is a great initiative that we immediately warmed to and wanted to be involved.”

Dr Holbeach explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all health care staff in different ways. It raised the levels of anxiety and concerns about personal risks, especially seeing the experiences overseas.

“A lot of our doctors have family or colleagues who work in health care abroad and have seen the emotional impact of caring for patients with COVID-19, especially with social distancing and restrictions in please. Luckily, we haven’t experienced that huge wave of patients,” she said.

“For the junior staff, one of the biggest concerns is that training has been put on hold and that puts their entire career progression in a grey zone at the moment. One of the effects of COVID-19 on mental health is seeing the effect of uncertainty of what will the future bring,” she added.

One of our doctors, Alanna Rottler, said CrazySocks4Docs signifies a change in the way that the medical profession thinks about and supports our colleagues.

“It’s a day when we acknowledge that our jobs take a toll which can be significant, but that this toll shouldn’t go unrecognised and unsupported. I think it also underscores that although we work in teams throughout hospitals, the broader health professional community is still fairly tight-knit. Because of this there is great value in both celebrating achievements and supporting one another when times are tough”.

Alison O’Sullivan, Workplace Wellbeing Coordinator, said Northern Health is focused on supporting the mental health of our staff and promoting self-care.

“We are in the caring profession and we care a lot for other people, but we need to care for ourselves as well. Our wellbeing program offers programs like Employee Assistance program (Converge), and we are running programs like yoga, TREAT mindfulness sessions, stress management sessions and massages for all staff. Please keep checking the intranet for our regular offers,” she added.

“It’s important that our medical staff knows there is also local support within departments, like restructuring rosters and similar. Sometimes, people just need some time out. If that is how you feel, come talk to us. We can’t help if we don’t know about it,” Dr Holbeach said.

For more pictures of our staff marking CrazySocks4Docs Day click here.

Featured image (left to right): Back row – Michelle Rovetto, Dr Alistar Tinson, Dr Edwina Holbeach, Dr John Ferguson, Guliano and Raffaele Pietrolungo  from Soxy Beast; Front row – Dr Mandeep Singh Kalsi, Dr Rhonda Taleb and Dr Tessa Low.

Northern Health was successful in receiving a Better Care Victoria Innovation Grant for our project proposal to use analytics to improve Chronic Disease Consequences (ACDC). The ACDC project will build on Northern Health’s existing ‘Staying Well’ initiative, which focuses on helping those with complex chronic conditions maintain their wellbeing, instead of waiting until they need to come to hospital.

The Better Care Victoria Innovation Fund (the Fund) is a key platform for supporting sector-led innovation and improvement projects in the Victorian health sector. Established in 2016, the Fund calls for applications annually, and has delivered four rounds of innovation projects, with a total of 42 projects funded to date. In addition to funding, project teams will also receive a dedicated coach and contact within Safer Care Victoria, access to tools, templates and guidance materials, collaboration and partnership support.

Anthony Gust, Director of Data Science and Analytics, says, “The ACDC project will use machine learning to more accurately predict people at high risk of multiple unplanned hospital admissions and to detect deterioration in their health. This will, in turn, allow for proactive delivery of care.”

“We are excited to receive our first Better Care Victoria Innovation Grant, as it places Northern Health at the forefront of health analytics. It will also enable Northern Health to better partner with other health services who may be interested,” says Sophie Argiriou, Director, Project Management Office/HRO, who coordinated the project proposal.

“What the Better Care Innovation Grant does is allow us to work on which patients are more likely to have an unplanned admission. Once selected, Northern Health can then put services in place and be more proactive in a patients care,” adds Anthony.

“This is not only about receiving a Better Care Victoria Innovation Grant, but about starting the conversation on how we are going to make a paradigm shift. It is a small step in us understanding our community but the vision of staying well is so much bigger and very exciting.”

Associate Professor Don Campbell, Program Director for the Staying Well Program, says, “We are excited to work with Anthony and use learnings from his work  to inform the design of the case-finding and evaluation for the Patient Watch program at Northern Health. Patient Watch will help us identify and care for the two per cent of our patients who are at the highest risk of multiple attendances and admissions to hospital, so that we can help keep them safe at home.”

“Congratulations to Anthony and team on receiving the first Better Care Innovation Grant. His work will help us provide better care for our vulnerable patients, closer to home,” adds A/Prof. Don.

Featured picture shows Anthony Gust and Sophie Argiriou in discussion.

Northern Health is introducing an electronic Referral Manager (E-Triage) system on 25 June, capable of processing 130,000 patient referrals per annum.

The Referral Manager will replace the current paper process in use and was a need identified by Ernst and Young in 2018 and endorsed by our Audit and Risk Committee.

Daniella Chapkoun, Project Lead, Referral Manager (E-Triage) Project says, “Because the current system is a paper process, it’s harder to track the referral once it leaves the Business Centre.”

Says Daniella, “With the new Referral Manager, we can ensure the security of the referral, ensure our patients get their referral actioned and they get an appointment  in an appropriate time frame.”

As Daniella points out, from a referrer’s perspective the process will be easier- no longer multiple forms, but one centralised point electronically. It will cover all the specialist clinics including Cardiology, plus Allied Health and Community Access.

“This will help the referrer and help the triaging process – because we know where every referral is at every point.”

From a patient point of view, it will be faster too, says Daniella.  “When their GP refers it will be actioned quicker. We no longer are printing referrals and leaving it in the mailroom- it will all be electronic.”

“Every action is done within seconds and the whole process from registration to appointment can be done in 10 minutes. Currently this takes at least 24 hours.”

Chief Medical Officer, John Ferguson, says, “The introduction of the new Referral Manager system is very timely and is to the benefit of our patients and referring doctors specifically, ensuring that referrals sent to us will be appropriately recognized and managed efficiently and effectively.”

“Using the system requires some training, and changes in current work practices for our medical staff, which are being worked through. Ultimately we do see this system to be advantageous for patient care and I strongly encourage our medical staff to work with us and help implement the new referral manager system at Northern Health.”

Featured pictures shows from left to right: Maria Tucker, Divisional Director Nursing- Cancer Services, Lucinda Stoneham, Future State Specialist Clinics Project Lead, Sam Soggee, Director of Operations, Cancer Services and Specialist Clinics, Cathy Fletcher, Nurse Unit Manager, Danielle Byrne, Project Officer, Referral Manager Project  and Daniella Chapkoun, Project Lead, Referral Manager.

In the coming months, the Central Sterilising Services Department (CSSD) at Northern Hospital Epping will be preparing to move into their new home in the tower.

Sometimes known as the “heart of the hospital”, the CSSD is a 24/7 department that cleans, disinfects and sterilises all reusable medical devices used in procedures, providing services to the operating theatres and other departments and campuses of Northern Health.

The move comes as part of the Northern Hospital Stage 2 Expansion Project. Led by Nurse Unit Manager, Evient Koh, the team have been working hard to undertake extra training, implement new technology and take on more roles as part of a new model of care.

This includes taking over the management of orthopaedic loan equipment, reprocessing of endoscopes, set-ups of theatre lists and centralising reprocessing of reusable medical devices from the clinics.

The CSSD team, in collaboration with the supply department, have also helped to realign the role of supplying and managing ward and clinic imprest stock and transition this service to the supply department to form part of a standard ordering process.

The team are looking forward to moving into their new location, and they will have a larger space to work in, including a separate area for each stage of the sterilisation process.

“In the tower, we will also have more equipment and it’s going to be more spacious than what we currently have,” said Melanie Almazan, Associate Nurse Unit Manger.

The process will also become more efficient as they will have access to larger washers and more sterilisers to increase production.

Introduced last year, the team have been using an innovative new tracking system which enables them to track patients and the instruments used on them.

“This is important because if we need to check if an instrument was processed accordingly for a certain patient – for example if they had an infection – then we can prove it was processed correctly,” Melanie said.

The system also allows the team to check which staff members handled which instruments, as well as keep track of the number of instruments and how many are out for repair.

“Just last month we also started Antigermix – a new high level disinfection, so we are centralising all the cleaning processes in CSSD,” Melanie said.

“I’m very thankful for the staff because with all of this technology, they really have taken the time to learn, and they have been very positive in accepting the changes. As soon as we explained it to them, the staff were quite open with it, so we are happy that from all the senior staff to the junior staff they are taking this on with open arms, and our manager has been explaining it to all of us as well,” Melanie said.

“I would like to thank all our staff who had been very resilient with the many changes that have taken place in our department in the past year. Our staff have taken over the management of loan equipment in both Broadmeadows and Northern Hospital, endoscope processing in Northern Hospital, set-up of theatre lists in Broadmeadows and scheduled to commence in Northern Hospital in June – all of which were previously the responsibility of the theatre nursing staff,” Evient Koh said.

“We are all very excited and looking forward to moving into our new department and it is only possible because of the team work and support given to the management and each other as we embrace Northern Health’s value of being Kind, Safe and Together,” Evient added.