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.

Over the last year, Craigieburn Centre has ramped up their Rapid Access Iron Infusion Clinic.

The pilot project, which started in late 2018, is targeted at reducing waiting times for patients in need of an iron infusion.

The clinic keeps four chairs in the Craigieburn Day Medical Unit available – two of those chairs are used for referrals from Northern Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED).

“One of the key benefits is that it helps free up the Short Stay Unit in ED. Our aim is to get the patient in as quickly as possible, so we book an appointment and it’s all done in a very quick time frame. Then they come in, have their haematology appointment and then go straight around and have their infusion,” said Carol Northmore, Craigieburn Centre Site Operations Manager.

Dr Teresa Leung, Consultant Haematologist, has been leading the project. Dr Leung reviews the two patients referred from ED, and fills the other two chairs with patients who are referred from the community to the haematology service with iron deficiency anaemia.

She says the motivation behind the rapid-access clinic was to improve patient experience and assist community members to receive their iron infusions quicker. Previously, GP’s would send a referral and it would be triaged as per clinical urgency so that would mean certain patients could wait up to three months to see a doctor and afterwards would go on another waiting list to receive their infusion. Sometimes patients would be upset as they would come in for their appointment expecting to receive their infusion on the same day, and some of these patients would end up presenting to ED in distress.

“Part of the aim of this service is to re-direct patients who end up in the ED to Craigieburn quickly to have their infusion,” Dr Leung said.

“Secondly, we aim to shorten that period of waiting time between getting seen and getting the iron infusion. So far the feedback we have has been excellent in that it helps to improve patient experience and relieve some of the bed pressure in ED,” Dr Leung said.

“I think the project has been quite successful – it meets patient’s needs and is very patient-focused which is great. A research poster was developed on the project and displayed at Research Week,” Carol said.

The project success has been a collaborative effort of many different teams coming together to help ensure the smooth running of the clinic, from medical staff to nursing, pharmacy and administrative staff across both Craigieburn Centre and Northern Hospital. Although the clinic only runs one day per week, there is a lot of planning and work done in preparation so the flow is seamless on the day, and Enrolled Nurse, Lindy Weir, plays a key role in patient coordination and liaison.

Furthermore, as an initiative to promote patient education, the team have also developed information packs for patients containing written materials on oral iron supplements to assist them once they go home.

“People become iron deficient from a number of causes but there is often a dietary component to it. So we’ve developed an information pack which our day medical staff use to educate patients on iron rich foods, as well as how to take their iron tablets properly. We try to make their journey more fruitful than just coming in for their infusion and then walking away,” Dr Leung said.

“It’s been a good piece of work and we’d loved to see it expand. The staff got on board really quickly and have been very helpful and really engaged,” Carol said.

“Thank you to all the staff who have embraced this new challenge!” Dr Leung added.

Northern Health and DPV Health are thrilled to announce they have signed a collaborative Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to support initiatives for innovation, shared service planning and delivery to benefit our growing communities.

The MOU will establish a framework to strategically explore opportunities for both parties to collaborate and address priority health and wellbeing issues across outer Northern Melbourne.

Working closely together, DPV Health and Northern Health have already commenced collaboration on a range of projects including:

• The establishment of a COVID-19 Screening Centre, operated by Northern Health at DPV Health’s Epping site in March 2020.
• Northern Health’s “Staying Well with Diabetes in the North” project, to establish an integrated, multidisciplinary health care model targeting diabetes.
• DPV Health’s “Community Watch” project which aims to develop a whole of region coordinated approach for a wellbeing check and referral guide for local community organisations to support their clients to stay well during the COVID-19 isolation period and beyond.

Don Tidbury, DPV Health CEO, said, “The MOU builds on the already great alliance between DPV Health and Northern Health. Successful partnerships between the acute and primary health systems will ultimately benefit the growing communities we serve.”

Siva Sivarajah, Northern Health Chief Executive, said, “We are pleased to further develop this longstanding partnership with DPV Health. Healthcare in the future needs collaboration like this to better connect all aspects of people’s health care needs.”

Feature Image (left to right): Briana Baass, Executive Director – Northern Health Chief Allied Health Officer & Partnership; Siva Sivarajah – Northern Health Chief Executive and Don Tidbury, DPV Health Chief Executive Officer

Staff at Broadmeadows Hospital celebrated a wonderful achievement earlier this month, with a patient going home from Unit 2 – Rehabilitation after spending 288 days in hospital.

Jamie was admitted to Northern Hospital Epping on 22 July 2019 after being found unconscious by his mother and fighting for life. The subsequent months saw Jamie struggling to walk, talk and be able to process his thoughts and emotions clearly, due to an acquired brain injury.

“Since coming to hospital, Jamie moved through Emergency Department, ICU, Ward 5 and finally arrived to Rehabilitation at Broadmeadows Hospital in August 2019. During this time, he successfully regained his ability to walk, communicate effectively and was able to regain his independence,” said Belinda Nash, Nurse Unit Manager, Unit 2.

With the help of the Unit 2 Rehab Team and his mother Wendy, he is now able to access NDIS housing and support.

“Jamie is a symbol of the team’s drive and dedication to help patients regain their independence. Well done to both Jamie and the Unit 2 team,” said Grant Taylor, Site Director, Broadmeadows Hospital.

Proudly walking by himself with his mother by his side, thanking the nurses, doctors and allied health that cared for him, Jamie rightfully received a ‘guard of honour’ as he was discharged.

Please see the video below: