May 2021
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Recognising National Volunteer Week
This week marks National Volunteer Week (17 May to 23 May). Our 340 volunteers play an important role at Northern Health across all our sites. Prior to COVID-19, the volunteers would assist with a variety of roles including guiding, QFlow, tea and coffee services, administration, the Busy Fingers Gift Shop, the Rehab Supply Centre, offered spiritual and palliative care, visited patients on the wards and in nursing homes, helped with social groups, ran an Old Blokes Shed, cuddled babies in the Neonatal Unit and offered breast cancer support. Henni Wade, Manager Volunteer Services, said the volunteers demonstrated amazing resilience and…
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In operation with Dennis Gyomber
This week, we caught up with Dennis Gyomber, who recently took on the role of Divisional Director of Surgery. He talks about his passion for surgery and his love of comics. What’s your coffee order? It’s a small latte with an extra shot. Tell us about your Northern Health journey. The journey started for me as an intern at least 25 years ago. I started off in the Emergency Department doing some ward work, ICU rotation and anesthetic rotations. Then I entered in speciality training and I went to other facilities. I was trained as a urologist and I always knew…
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Celebrating diversity at Northern Health
Today, Northern Health acknowledged IDAHOBIT – International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia – to celebrate the identities and achievements of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQA+) people and to stand with them against discrimination and all forms of violence. Despite great community acceptance and understanding in recent years, Australia’s LGBTIQA+ community experiences depression at between three to five times the rate of the general population. At least 75 per cent of young LGBTIQA+ people experience some form of discrimination and 61 per cent experience verbal abuse. Here at Northern Health, we want to make that zero…
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National Health Information Management Awareness Week
This week is National Health Information Management Awareness Week. Health Information is at the heart of the healthcare system and is maintained by Health Information Managers (HIMs). Terri Fiorenza, Director Health Information Services, explained HIM’s professional responsibilities cover the collection, storage, analysis and distribution of healthcare information. “HIMs contribute both to the healthcare system and to people’s health by providing the information systems and data central for medical decision making and patient care planning. HIMs coordinate many kinds of healthcare information, from a variety of sources. At Northern Health, HIMs work across the following departments: Health Information Services, Decision Support…
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Meet the EMR informatics team!
Over the coming months, we will continue to introduce you to the dedicated staff members who are working on the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Project – a two year project to introduce an EMR to Northern Health. Three staff members working in the informatics space are Dr Lachie Hayes, Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Vanessa Reid, Chief Nursing Information Officer (CNIO) and Daniella Chapkoun, Nursing Informatics and Benefits Analyst. Lachie explains his work in informatics over the past decade at Northern Health. “I’ve been involved in various informatics projects at Northern over the last 10 years, providing me with a comprehensive…
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Happy International Nurses Day
International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world annually on 12 May, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth. This year’s theme is Nurses: A Voice to Lead – A vision for future healthcare. Annabel Milonas, Director Education – Nursing and Midwifery, said to celebrate the day, Northern Health is moving its focus outwards to its wider international community and showing support and unification for the nursing staff in Papua New Guinea (PNG) experiencing the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, by sending care packages. “Throughout 2020 in Australia, while facing the COVID-19 pandemic and in Victoria especially, our nurses would like…
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Improving critical care
Standard 8 – Recognising and Responding to Acute Deterioration aims to ensure that a person’s acute deterioration is recognised promptly and appropriate action is taken. Acute deterioration includes physiological changes, as well as acute changes in cognition and mental state. Elise Sutton, Clinical Deterioration and Resuscitation Coordinator, is one of the leads on the Standard 8 Committee and works on numerous Standard 8-related projects, as well as on the education around this Standard. “Some of the projects implemented include the ‘Allergy and Anaphylaxis’ project, where we identified there was no allergy and anaphylaxis procedure, so we developed an online learning…
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Karen Bryant’s new honour
Our Senior Aboriginal Liaison Officer Karen Bryant has been inducted into the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll. The honour roll celebrates and recognises the achievements of Aboriginal Victorians, both past and present, who have made a profound contribution to their community and the state. “I am very happy to be acknowledged in this way. I am feeling very honoured to be among the 12 other inductees and to hear their stories is a beautiful and humbling experience,” Karen said. Karen has worked at Northern Health for 14 years and says she has seen the organisation and Aboriginal services at Northern Health…