For today’s ‘get to know your’ profile, we catch up with Simone Motton, Director of Allied Health. Simone joined the health service in 2015 as an Occupational Therapy Clinical Leader, and also worked as the Associate Director of Occupational Therapy and Hand Therapy, before she was appointed to her new role in December last year.

Let’s start with your coffee order.

I’m a very boring person who doesn’t drink coffee. I really wish I did, my taste buds just don’t agree.

Tell us about your role of Director Allied Health – what does it involve?

The Director of Allied Health is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Allied Health Department, as well as ensuring we are strategically planning and responding to current and future needs. This involves a lot of meetings with various staff across the organisation and working very closely with the Allied Health Leadership team across all allied health disciplines.

What excites you the most about your new role?

Allied Health is involved in so many different areas of the organisation so there’s always something new and exciting happening as Northern Health expands. Ensuring we have the right Allied Health staffing within teams and services as we expand is exciting for me. It ensures the community is receiving the best care possible. We also have around 500 staff. I am very passionate about staff wellbeing and making Northern Health a great place to work. We have so many capable staff and we want to ensure we attract and retain them.

What is your vision for the Allied Health department?

Our vision for the Allied Health Department is for it to be a responsive service in a time of rapid growth in the north. This means ensuring we have the best workforce available with the right skills, who are functioning in a positive and supportive environment. It also means ensuring we are collaborating closely and working as a team with all key stakeholders along the continuum of care to provide optimal outcomes for patients.

What do you like to do in your spare time or when not at work?

What spare time! When I’m not at work, I enjoy getting out and about with the family to the beach, events, eating out, visiting family. Post-COVID, we find ourselves not wanting to be within the walls of the house often.

What would people be most surprised to know about you?

I have four children (eight, five, three and one year old) – they keep us on our toes and really ensure we experience the full spectrum of emotions within each 24-hour period.

After several successful Play for Purpose raffles in 2022, Northern Health Foundation is once again taking part in this fundraising initiative.

Play for Purpose is an online charitable raffle helping Australian charities fundraise. By purchasing a ticket, you will be supporting Northern Health Foundation in its vision of building a healthier community for our staff and patients at Northern Health.

The Foundation was able to raise an incredible $38,000 during 2022, over four raffles drawn in March, June, September and December.  Proceeds from these raffles contributed towards the purchase of new state-of-the-art equipment for the Ophthalmology Department at Broadmeadows Hospital.

Tickets purchased put you straight into the draw for your chance to win a $250,000 first-prize package that offers the best of both worlds; a luxury BMW X5 xDrive45e Hybrid SUV, plus over $89,000 in cashable gold.

Other prizes include a Visa gift voucher worth $15,000, a Travel Associates gift voucher worth $7,500, a JB Hi-Fi gift voucher worth $5,000 and a Woolworths gift voucher worth $2,500.

Northern Health staff and patients have won some great prizes in these raffles previously, including two staff members taking home a top five prize.

Tickets cost $10 each, with half of all proceeds going directly to Northern Health Foundation to help fund essential medical equipment, research and training for our patients and staff in the north.

Pina Di Donato, Executive Director, Public Affairs and Foundation, said, “We thank our staff and community for supporting our fundraising initiatives. Play for Purpose enable us to participate in raffles offering quality prizes which we wouldn’t be able to access in our own right.”

Get in quick! Ticket sales close on Thursday, 16 March. Winners will be announced on Friday, 17 March.

To purchase your raffle tickets, click here.

Northern Health is becoming more environmentally friendly, as part of the Victorian Government’s ban of the sale and supply of single-use plastics.

From today, 1 February, the following items can no longer be purchased or supplied:

• drinking straws, cutlery (including knives, forks, spoons, chopsticks, sporks, splades, and food picks)
• plates
• drink stirrers
• cotton bud sticks
• expanded polystyrene food and drink containers.
• items made from conventional, degradable and compostable materials, including bioplastics.

The ban applies state-wide to businesses and organisations, including not-for-profits, governments, sports clubs, schools and others that are incorporated.

Henry’s Cafe at Northern Hospital Epping will transition to paper cutlery and straws. Cafe 1231 at Bundoora Centre will remove all plastics and use bio-degradable products. Cutlery, paper plates and containers will also be wooden at Cafe 1231.

The above plastic items will no longer be available to be ordered from FMIS and will be replaced with sustainable alternatives. Exemptions to the ban will be made for patients requiring plastic items for certain departments.

The Procurement team is also working with Health Share Victoria on a list of alternatives and samples. Imprest barcodes will be replaced by Supply, and any orders placed as a non-catalogue order will be reviewed and approved only if the department ordering is exempted. At this stage, the ban does not include cups or bowls, however Northern Health will remove these items from purchasing lists to become proactive.

Greg Warman, Director, Support Services, is delighted with these changes.

“We know how harmful plastic waste is to the environment, wildlife and even people. This is a bold move to help save our planet,” he said.

Staff are also encouraged to use keep cups when purchasing take-away coffee.

If staff have any queries regarding product changes, contact TNH-SupplyServicesGroup@nh.org.au. For further information on the ban, please visit Sustainability Victoria.

Picture shows from left to right: Snezana Poposka – Manager and Mai Lolesio – Food Service Assistant, ISS Facility Services –Bundoora Centre

At the beginning of 2023, we asked a cross section of our Executive team to tell us what they wished for in 2023.

Anthony Gust, Executive Director, Digital Health, predicted 2023 to be the “year of together – together we will continue to look after our patients and also each other.”

With this in mind, at ‘The Window’ yesterday, Northern Health’s Year of Together was officially launched.

There’s no doubt that the last few years have been challenging. During that time, the health service, along with the world, dealt with, and continues to deal with a pandemic. Closer to home, we also said farewell to some dear colleagues – but we also welcomed new faces. We were unable to do some of the things we used to – but we found new ways and did it better. Not only are we still standing – but we are also standing closer together.

As we look towards this new year, we are resilient and strong, and will face new challenges and triumphs the same way we always have – together.

Our values have never been more relevant than they are today, especially ‘together’. They are not just words – they are principles that guide our actions and behaviours in our everyday work life.

“Together is the team coming together. If an individual is dominating a game, usually what happens is they eventually get beaten. We can have teams within divisions dominating, but the trick for a really good team is knowing when to pass off, knowing when to involve others in your play,” said Anthony Gust.

For Associate Professor Mayur Garg, Director of Gastroenterology, together is “recognising that we are all navigating in an ever-changing and complex healthcare environment, and that none of us can do it without the assistance and support of each other.”

“Together means having a team that takes pride in each other’s achievements and has each other’s backs to get the best out of each other,” he said.

Simone Motton, Director Allied Health, said teamwork is the essence of together.

“I believe teamwork is about banding together to get the job done. Over the past few years, we at Northern Health have been bonded together more strongly. It is an exciting time ahead at Northern Health – we are a strong team, and we are doing great things,” she said.

Craig Field, PSA, says together means the support of your fellow colleagues and helping each other out.

“We need to have each other’s backs. If we don’t, it is very hard. We do rely on each other, and we need to be accountable for what we all do. If we are all accountable, and we work as a team, togetherness is fantastic,” he said.

Visit the Intranet for more information on the Year of Together, including a signature that has been developed for staff to show their support of the Year of Together.

Northern Health’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is due to go live on 4 September 2023! In approximately eight months, staff in the emergency department, any inpatient setting, and ambulatory (maternity) will be transitioning from paper-based documentation to ‘paper-light’ documentation, primarily using workstations on wheels (WOWs) to document patient clinical data into the EMR.

From using new devices and workflows to deliver patient care, administering medications using barcode scanning, to documenting patient information in near ‘real time’, this implementation will be a significant change for Northern Health staff and consumers. Last year, the team had the privilege of speaking with some of our executives and staff members about what EMR will mean for them as individuals, cohorts, and the organisation as a whole. Today, we are delighted to share this video so you can hear firsthand what EMR means for them in their own words.

Lucia Bento, Site Director of Broadmeadows and Director of Nursing, says, “With the EMR going live in September, for my staff and I, it will mean there will be less paper-based charts with most documentation being completed in the EMR. Our staff will also be able to access specific patient charts to prepare beds, medications, and much more, before the patient is transferred to our site.”

Vallavan Kulasekaran, Medication Management Software Pharmacist, says, “For pharmacists specifically, we will be able to verify medication charts and drug orders using the EMR. I am really excited about the EMR because it will come with a lot of benefits. In the long run, I think it is important for everyone to remember that EMR is built with decision support tools, like allergy checking, and duplicate drug checking, but remember that this doesn’t replace our clinical decisions and the need for clinicians.”

Visit the EMR website to find out more about the EMR and the benefits it will bring to you, your area of work, and the organisation. Reach out to the team by emailing NH-EMRQuestion@nh.org.au.

 

For today’s ‘Get to know’ profile, we caught up with Vanessa Reid, Chief Nursing and Midwifery Informatics Officer.

 

Firstly, what’s your coffee order?

Latte.

 

Tell us about your Northern Health journey.

I have been at Northern Health for 5 years now in the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Informatics Officer role.

 

What do you like most about your role?

My work is varied and allows me to interact with our nurses and midwives from all wards, departments and campuses.  In this role, I serve as the bridge between nursing and midwifery practitioners and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) staff in the development of EMR design and system implementation.  I work with clinical and leadership to interpret clinical practice and organisational priorities to ensure we design safe digital enabled workflows that support the nursing and midwifery profession.

 

Are you excited about the EMR going live in September 2023? 

Yes, very excited! It has been a long time coming and there have been many nurses and midwives at Northern Health that have helped design this system, so it will be fantastic to see it in use.

 

What are some of the benefits we will see when the EMR goes live?

By implementing the EMR at Northern Health, we will see many benefits across the organisation.  The realisation of benefits is a principal reason investment is made or change implemented.   Whilst there are many expected benefits, the organisation has endorsed a Benefits Program of work that focuses on 15 Benefits. One of the benefits the organisation has decided to measure is ‘Reduced Adverse Drug Events (ADEs)’.  By implementing the electronic medication management module, it will not only support the reduction in ADEs but should also provide the following positive outcomes:

1. Improved medication administration safety
2. Reduction in transcription errors
3. Reduction in adverse drug reactions associated with prescribing errors
4. More efficient medication reconciliation and easy identification of previous ADE’s
5. Reduction in administration errors associated with drug chart legibility and non-generic prescribing
6. Prescribers are alerted to potential drug interactions and known allergies, which may impact mortality, morbidity and/or length of stay measures

 

What are some things people don’t know about you? 

I live on 10 bush acres just outside of the Yarra Valley.  Our property backs onto Kinglake National Park and is a wildlife corridor, allowing native animals safe passage to move around away from the roads.  Our principles at home are to be as sustainable as possible and we work towards this by operating a large solar power system, use of tank water only, a residential worm farm that processes all black and grey water on site and our produce garden which provides fresh food for the family.

 

 

It is hard to believe another year has come and gone, and we’ve now entered into 2023 with a renewed sense of enthusiasm for the months ahead.

The Foundation takes this opportunity to express gratitude for all those who have contributed to our fundraising efforts in the past year. For our team, we are fortunate to receive gifts of items, people’s time, and financial support. These gifts enable us to work with Northern Health to enhance the experiences of our patients and their loved ones.

Among our achievements in 2022 was the ICU courtyard refurbishment. This space has been fitted with planter boxes, outdoor tables and seating – creating a lovely space for ICU staff to enjoy. Patient beds can also be moved outside, with access to appropriate monitors, so they too can benefit from this beautiful space. We were also able to fund BLS Manikans, which are used for teaching purposes across different wards, and a mobile pressure relief chair for Ward 16. These items were made possible by the generous contributions of our Workplace Giver. On a larger scale, with the help of our wonderful community, Broadmeadows Hospital will receive new equipment for their Ophthalmology Department to continue providing the highest quality of care to cataracts patients in our northern catchment.

We are also extremely grateful for the efforts of our Dry July participants, who raised $27,000 for a heart-warming cause. Thanks to their determination, our Palliative Care patients will be receiving a brand-new courtyard, with beautiful artwork to adorn the walls and uplift its hallways in 2023.

Northern Health Foundation patrons, Bev Carman, Trudi Hay and Josie Minniti, also hosted another year of successful events. Whilst they were run individually, they all shared in the same idea – contributing to help others. We sincerely thank each one of them for their continued support of Northern Health Foundation.

As we look forward to 2023, Northern Health Foundation Board will be focussing on funding PhD research scholarships and an Anorectal Laboratory for Northern Health.

Margaret Rivette, Fundraising Campaigns Officer, Northern Health Foundation said, “We look forward to the year ahead of us, refreshed and focused on funding projects that make a difference. We also thank you for continuing in this philanthropic journey with us to create a healthier community, one step at a time.”

The Foundation office is located in the main foyer, opposite Henry’s Café. If you would like come in to say hello, please stop by at any time.

Northern Health has teamed up with XRef to create an online referencing system to improve the time efficiency, effort and stress associated with reference checking.

XRef is an online referencing system that will reduce time to hire and help secure top talent faster by making informed and compliant hiring decisions with XRef’s automated reference checking software.

XRef is mobile optimised, which means both candidates and referees can complete the required information on the go.

Nicholas Giglietta, Talent Acquisition Partner, says, “X-Ref will give time back to clinical duties, assisting with greater, more positive patient outcomes.”

Northern Health has arranged to have XRef fully integrated with Success Factors – requesting a reference check will be one click away, all within the recruitment software, Success Factors.

Staff will also have access to live status updates and the ability to export completed reference reports all from one place.

Northern Health has created discipline-specific templates for all areas including Medical, Nursing, Allied Health, Mental Health, Pharmacy, Pathology, Administration and Support Services, and Radiology. Staff will also have the option to further select if it’s a leadership position they are recruiting for. Each template will be built into Success Factors.

The system is set to ‘go live’ on Monday, 13 February 2023. Staff will automatically see the updates in Success Factors and be able to start using electronic reference checks.

Northern Health recommends attending one of the training sessions below if you are either a hiring manager or an additional user on Success Factors responsible for completing reference checks.

Northern Health will conduct three separate training sessions via Teams, providing staff with a live demonstration on how XRef works. Training will be held on the following dates:

• Tuesday, 14 February at 10 am
• Wednesday, 15th February at 3 pm
• Thursday, 16th February at 10 am

Sharyn Schon, Talent Acquisition Coordinator/Acting Manager, says, “I am so proud of my team for implementing this new system which will create positive changes and reduce time to hire and time spent on administrative tasks.”

Emily Dawson, Director, Organisation Capability and Recruitment, was also very excited to be able to integrate an online and quality solution for reference checking. She says, “It will improve our time for recruitment and hiring.”

If you have any questions or feedback, please email the recruitment team NHRecruitment@nh.org.au