Northern Health is celebrating Women’s Health Week by holding a fabulous event for its female staff and women from Melbourne’s northern suburbs, with the aim to empower women and improve their health.

Women’s Health Week will be held from 3-7 September 2018 at Northern Hospital Foyer, with the drop-in sessions running from 8.30-9am, 10-11am and 1-2pm. This is a great opportunity to discuss different aspects of women’s health with a Northern Health professional, get essential information and advice, and take a proactive approach towards health.

Cheryl Murray, Breast Care Nurse Consultant at Northern says that women are usually are busy juggling family, work and day to day duties, and a lot of the time they put everyone else’s needs first. Time is quite often the enemy for women when it comes down to maintaining their health, with women often forgetting about themselves and more often than not only seeing a doctor when something goes wrong.

“It is crucial for women to look after themselves mentally and physically and that starts as early as vaccinations. Knowing your body and what is normal and abnormal is great, knowing what to do if there is a problem. Taking advantage of the community programs like Breast Screening, vaccination programs, cervical screening and bowel cancer screening is essential to be healthy and to live a long and happy life,” she says.

Cheryl also points out that prevention is one of the keys to good health. In cases where women are facing a health issue, getting on top of it early can make all the difference, particularly if it is a potential life threatening scenario.

We encourage you to have a look at the topics covered during each session and be sure to drop in at the foyer for a chat.

It’s free, informative and can be life-changing.

 

From 10 – 13 September, Northern Health will be holding a week of ‘Conversations on Mental Wellness’ as part of our Psychological Wellbeing Strategy.

The program focuses on three main areas; protection, prevention and intervention, as an initiative to protect the mental health of Northern Health staff, promote wellbeing, and intervene to address mental health concerns.

World Suicide Prevention Day will mark the start of the program on Monday 10 September, with Layne Stretton from Roses in the Ocean speaking about the impact suicide can have on families and communities, and the signs to look out for.

Speakers and sessions will run until R U OK? Day to close the program on Thursday 13 September.

The objective of these events is to showcase Northern Health’s commitment to a psychologically safe workplace, and provide tangible steps towards a number of actions, including raising awareness, combating stigma, suicide prevention and promoting positive mental health.

One of the featured speakers, Northern Health Pastoral Care Coordinator, David Paterson, describes conversations on mental wellness as “openness to asking the question about how someone else is doing and openness to giving an honest answer.”

“When someone asks how you are, instead of the trite answer, ‘fine how are you?’, stop, pause and reflect on how you are really. Are you tired, sad, depressed, happy, flat or simply don’t know?”

Molly Galea (pictured), Northern Health Allied Health Education Lead, will be speaking on how great teams make great workplaces. She says her session will be an interactive, active and playful look at how you can contribute to creating a mentally healthy workplace.

So what does mental wellness mean to Molly?

“It means I am happy with where I am in my life, and who I have around me. It’s feeling I’m contributing to the world and my community, knowing that I have the emotional resources to come through adversity and times of trouble.”

“Every interaction we have promotes or detracts from others’ mental health. It is our network of identities that make us who we are. A web of identities means that if one fails, we have a whole bunch of other identities to catch us,” she said.

To start the conversation, please click here.

Northern Health’s research team has just become stronger, having Mark Tacey, Biostatistician returning to work for us. Mark had spent two years with Northern Health in the past, then moved to Monash University and decided to come back and work on exciting projects with Northern’s researchers.

“I’ve chosen Northern because it’s a great research community. I enjoy helping people here and seeing their research go all the way to publication. I am also involved in a couple of quality improvement projects and I enjoy seeing how that helps with good patient outcomes,” Mark says.

Mark is a biostatistician available to provide statistical analysis support for staff on their projects conducted at Northern Health.  If you are working on research, Mark strongly recommends coming to him first before you start.

“I can assist with anything from sample size calculations to presentation of data. The importance of coming to me early in the project is that researchers make sure they get the study design and sample size accurate, and that will help them achieve their research goals,” he says. 

With research projects, having the right things done at the right time is essential.

“It’s crucial that they don’t go through the whole project phase, get to the end and then realise they don’t have enough sample size or they’ve conducted the analysis in a slightly incorrect way,” Mark says.

Mark will be providing training courses relating to clinical research study design, sample size estimation, clinical data collection and an introduction to statistical analysis, which will be advertised over the coming months.

Mark is available for consultation on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each week. He can be contacted on (03) 8468 0742 or at mark.tacey@nh.org.au, and is located in the Office of Research on Level 3 of the NCHER building.

Northern Health’s Research Week will be held from 8-12 October 2018.

 

 

In early 2019, Northern Health will be implementing a powerful new Learning Management System (LMS) as an integrated and collaborative online learning space for the future.

The system will provide an exclusive learning environment for all employees and allow those within our community to connect with the traditional delivery of training in a digital form.

Michelle Fenwick, Executive Director, People and Culture, says the new LMS is about bridging the gap between employee qualifications and Northern Health’s business requirements.

“Fundamentally, the LMS underpins employees life-cycle with Northern Health. We invest in equipment, we invest in buildings, we invest in new ideas, and the LMS is a way of investing in our employees,” Michelle Fenwick said.

For the duration of 2018, the focus will be on governance and support for the new system, sourcing and implementation of the system and providing leadership in the effective use of new and emerging technologies to enhance learning.

One of the first tasks, as an organisation, is to name the system. Open to all employees, a competition has been announced to devise a unique name.

Bec Gilbert, eLearning Manager, says they would like to brand the LMS with a name that represents Northern Health and the purpose of the new system, which is to accompany and enhance the traditional delivery of our training and online learning.

You’ll be notified if your selection is one of the top three and the person who submits the winning entry will receive a prize to the value of $200. Deadline for submissions is Thursday, 13 September.

To enter, please click here.

It’s Wear Blue Day at Northern Health’s Speech Pathology Departments, supporting the Speech Pathology Australia Week. This year,  the speech pathology professionals call for greater action to ensure accessibility for the 1.2 million Australians with a communication disability.

Communication access is vital to enable everyone to participate fully in the social, educational, economic and sporting aspects of life.

Emma Beer, Associate Director Allied Health Speech Pathology (CPSP), Audiology and Orthoptics at Northern Hospital says that they celebrate Speech Pathology Week every year with a different theme. This year, the focus is on communication access for all.

“In a hospital setting, we have a lot of patients with communication problems from stroke, who can’t communicate their needs. As speech pathologists, it’s important that we enable them to express themselves. We are all wearing blue today to draw attention to the importance of communication,” she said.

Technology plays a growing and vital role in keeping Australians with communication difficulties engaged with their family, friends and those in their local community.

Assistive technology such as electronic and speech generating devices, voice amplification and computer access aids (including eye-gaze mouse control and head tracking devices) allow people with speech difficulties to communicate with those around them.

Building communication accessibility will ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. When we create communication accessible communities, everyone gets the message.

Last week, Northern Health marked the Hand Hygiene Week, holding workshops and activities across all sites.

Hand hygiene is a crucial element of Standard 3 in the National Healthcare Standards which aims to improve infection prevention and control measures to help prevent infections and the spread of antimicrobial resistance.

Having in mind that healthcare-associated infections are the most common complication affecting patients in Australian hospitals, having regular safety and hygiene trainings helps us prevent complications while ensuring our staff receives the best possible education and practice.

Numerous events were held for our staff and visitors, including a Stethoscope raffle, Gold Standard Auditor Workshop hosted at NCHER, Pink “Avagard” T Shirts, display boards and educational workshops.

Our clinical staff handed out brochures to in-patients at Northern Hospital and answered questions about prevention and hygiene, while nurse educators assisted with hand hygiene promotion at Northern Health – Bundoora and Broadmeadows Hospital.

 

 

It’s that time of year again and the Northern Health Foundation Race Day is in full swing.

Hosted by Bev Carman, longstanding Northern Health supporter and Kilmore resident, Race Day will be returning trackside for the first meeting of the 18/19 country racing season to raise funds for research grants at Northern Health.

Bev Carman is passionate about improving the health of her community and encourages locals to get behind the event.

“The money raised will go toward researching the future of health for our community. We hope that people get involved in this fun day for a great cause supported by Freemasons Victoria,” she said.

Funds raised will go towards research into Telehealth and eHealth, changing how we use our smartphones to connect with medical professionals by providing health care services across geographic and cultural barriers.

Northern Health Research Lead, Professor Peter Brooks, is an active supporter of Telehealth.

“This cutting edge research into smartphone use will enhance the delivery of health care, educate patients and minimise hospital presentations,” Professor Brooks said.

Come along and join in the fun! Tickets are only $100 per person or $1,000 for a table of 10. 

When: Saturday 8 September 2018

Where: Kilmore Racing Club

Time: 12pm – 5.30pm

Click here to book your tickets. Includes seating in the main dining room which overlooks the track with a 3 course meal and beverage on arrival. Bus transfers from The Northern Hospital Epping will also be offered.

Northern Health, together with Victorian Simulation Alliance (VSA) held the Inaugural Simulation Conference 2018 last week at Northern Centre for Health Education and Research (NCHER).

Under the Alliance, Innovation and Inquiry motto, this year’s conference focused on supporting the simulation community.

Over 30 different simulation-related research articles were presented, covering multidisciplinary health topics and focusing on how simulation can be used to enhance patient outcomes.

Dr Alison Dwyer, Chief Medical Officer says that Northern Health is committed to providing outstanding care for the community in the north, which can only be achieved by supporting the clinicians to maintain and grow their clinical skills.

“This simulation conference is an outstanding example of cutting edge teaching philosophies, of which Northern Health will continue to support into the future. Congratulations to Todd Mason, as part of the Conference Organising Committee, and the Research and Education Unit on hosting  a successful conference,” she said.

Northern Health’s research is built upon innovative service delivery underpinned by excellence in education, as we create a culture for health that is based on the growing need for innovative and progressive care.