Northern Health’s Ideas Lab is a creative and fun monthly workshop, open to all staff who wish to contribute to problem-solving with their ideas. Every month, the Chief Executive led Ideas Lab features a different topic and staff are encouraged to thing innovatively, brainstorm in teams and present on creative solutions.

Ariana Carrodus, Project Manager, who hosts the Ideas Lab, says we are the only public health service in Victoria that has an Ideas Lab.

“While Ideas Labs are common in the private sector, they are very rare in public sectors. It is a purposefully designed space, away from the main hospital, and open to all staff. During the Ideas Lab, we are seeking out of the box inspiration and thinking, and learning from each other. It’s a space for innovation in health care and we often have guests from other health services or health organisations who brainstorm with us,” she said.

The idea for an Ideas Lab came from Canterbury Hospital in New Zealand, which has whole wards built from cardboard before they are actually built in hospitals.

Our Ideas Lab is on Level 3 at the NCHER building, which makes it additionally unique. When people walk into the room, they often think they’ve stepped into a kindergarten or that it’s an unfinished space. All of these factors contribute to thinking differently.

Since the first workshop in March 2018, Ariana has hosted over 80 sessions and discussed various topics, including focuses on staff wellbeing and a simulation of a cyber attack.

The creativity doesn’t stop once the workshop is over. All the ideas from these sessions are noted in the Ideas Scale software, accessible to all staff and completely anonymous. This means that staff can continue to share ideas, comment on other ideas, engage in the creative process and monitor the progress of the projects.

The Ideas Lab at Northern Health is part of an organisation-wide strategy to achieve high reliability. Together, with numerous initiatives across the organisation focused on improving quality and safety, it contributes to our vision of providing trusted care and creating a healthier community.

If you have a problem to solve in your ward or department and you think the Ideas Lab can help, please email Ariana and her team at ideaslab@nh.org.au.

Next Ideas Lab session: Tuesday, 11 February, 12.30 pm – 2 pm, NCHER, Level 3. 

Topic: Reducing waste and increasing trust
All staff welcome – just drop in!

Featured image (left to right): Clare McCarthy, Project Manager (HRO); Sophie Argiriou, Director (HRO); Ariana Carrodus, Project Manager (HRO).

When Michelle Morrow, Nurse Unit Manager, Maternity, identified that introducing a Pepi-Pod safe sleep space program at Northern Hospital could prevent infant falls due to co-sleeping, she approached the Northern Health Foundation to seek funding.

The Pepi-Pod is designed to sit on a bed alongside a new mother, with safety rail up, so mothers can attend to baby’s needs in those important first hours or days of life. Pepi-Pods are especially important if a new mother has had a caesarean section and her mobility is decreased.

“From a midwife’s perspective, we encourage mothers to take as much care of their infants as they can, as the time from having a baby to going home can be a very small window,” explained Michelle.

Recently, Michelle welcomed The Salvation Army ‘Sew Beautiful’ Craft Group to the Maternity Ward along with Josie Verga, Fundraising and Engagement Manager, Northern Health Foundation.

Joan Mathews, Co-ordinator of the Craft Group learnt about the Pepi-Pod project from Josie and together with her members agreed it was a worthwhile project to support.

“We already support Northern Hospital and this is a continuation of what we do,” Joan said.

Michelle was thrilled to welcome the group and be able to thank them personally for their support. At the time of their visit, there were six mums using the Pepi-Pods. The ladies met a new mum Heidi and were ‘blown away’ to see first-hand, the Pepi-Pod in use.

As they explained: “I think the practicality of the pods for new mums is great and to hear a young mum say that she got some sleep with her baby, thanks to the Pepi-Pod is very heartening. It is good to see them in use, because all we knew was that they were containers and now we can see they are so much more than that!”

Joan said that, “The craft group come together to share in fellowship, connect with others and undertake craft projects to raise vital funds to support their local community, including projects like the Pepi-Pod safe sleep space program at Northern Hospital”.

Yvonne Amos, Northern Health Foundation Director, informed Michelle, “The Salvation Army Whittlesea Craft Group left the ward very impressed with the Maternity Wards support and work with new mothers and will be wonderful community advocates for our service.”

This week, we welcomed six Certificate III Students to Northern Health for 2020.

The students will be working across many different departments, including pathology, finance, HRO, allied health and engineering/gardening services.

Alysha Spencer, Advisor, People and Culture, explained this program provides our students with business administration experience, recognised business experience and qualifications through our partnership with Apprenticeships Group Australia (AGA).

“These students have joined us from various high schools in the northern catchment area. A highlight for Northern Health this year is welcoming our first Engineering student, Blake Dennehy. Blake is currently completing a Certificate III in Parks and Gardens, and he will work across all four sites to ensure our grounds are kept well maintained,” she said.

Penelope Grellet, Director, Organisational Capability, explained how partnering with AGA has proven highly successful for Northern Health in previous years.

“A number of former AGA students are now full-time team members at Northern Health, and we are genuinely pleased to be able to continue this opportunity in 2020. We look forward to supporting our students, who are mostly successful graduates of our Certificate II program, in achieving their goals and setting them up for future success,” she said.

Michelle Fenwick, Executive Director, People and Culture, said over the last four years, the program has not just been developed at Northern Health to include nurses, clinicians and allied health, but to also ensure that we have succession planning for the non clinical workforce.

“This is certainly a valuable group within the administrative and support services side. This is our next crop of Northern Health employees who I am sure will have 10, 15 or 20 years of service at Northern Health,” she said.

One of the students completing their Certificate III, Amanda Samuela, said, “I am really excited to start working in Pathology and learning a lot in administration.”

If you see any of the students around Northern Health, please say hello and make them feel welcome!

Featured image (left to right): Dawn Comerford, AGA Field Officer; Michelle Fenwick, Executive Director; Amanda Samuela, student; Penelope Grellet Director; Alysha Spencer Advisor; Vesna Amituanai Tafili, student; Chloe Moorcroft, student; Siva Sivarajah, Chief Executive; Blake Dennehy, student.  Absent: Alexandra Price, student.

In this month’s Get to know: Q&A with…we catch up with Jenny Christof, HARP Care Coordinator from Bundoora Centre.

• What is your coffee order?

I have become a tea drinker of late – so I normally order an English Breakfast or Earl Grey – white with one.

• What does a typical work day look for you?

I work for the HARP complex needs program based at the Bundoora Centre. A normal day for me would be to come in and check emails and also check if any of my clients have presented back to hospital. I also look to see if any of my admitted clients have discharged home and give them a follow up phone call. I normally have one or two home visits booked in to assess new clients and also visit existing clients. This gives me an excellent opportunity to really see how they are managing at home and what issues I can help them address. We have a multidisciplinary team, so often once I get back from my visits I will be completing internal referrals and also work on aged care referrals. On some days, I assist my younger disability clients with their NDIS applications and accessing services. I also enjoy speaking to my clients about Advance Care Planning and ensuring that their end of life wishes are well documented. It is a busy but rewarding job!

• Tell us about your Northern Health journey?

I stared my nursing career at PANCH in 1996 where I completed my graduate year. Then, I accepted a position on 3 West – a medical ward under the amazing leadership of Anne Fraser.

We transferred across to Northern Hospital where I worked on Unit B (now Ward 4).

In 2000, I commenced a position in Care Coordination – which was a new role within the hospital. I was the only Care Coordinator within the inpatient unit and had to develop and shape the role to meet the patients needs. This was probably my most challenging job as no one had been in the care coordination position before. The Care Coordination job has been through many changes and is now known as the Acute to Community Coordination team. In 2006, I went back to working two days a week ward nursing, again on Ward 4, and did three days a week in Care Coordination.

In 2015, an opportunity became available to be trained in haemodialysis. I was a dialysis nurse in the inpatient dialysis unit for two years and completed my post graduate degree in renal nursing. After that, I secured my current job as a HARP Care Coordinator in the HARP complex needs team.

• Can you tell us a bit about your career before starting at Northern?

I think I was always destined to be a nurse. My mum was a nurse and worked in a nursing home, and I have early memories of mum taking me to work with her and lining up the nursing home residents dentures and getting me to wash them all! I think I was around eight years old.

I obtained a job in that same nursing home when I was 15 years old. I worked there until I was 21 years old and had multiple roles including afternoon chef, bed maker, cleaner and eventually a nurse. It was the best preparation for my nursing career, as I went into this career with my eyes wide open.

• What is your greatest achievement or favourite memory since working here?

My favourite memory in terms of working at Northern Health is working as a nurse on Unit B and forming long lasting friendships with many of the Unit B staff who I still regularly catch up with today. The Unit B gang had such camaraderie and you could always rely on the team to chip in, help out and get the job done. It was such a pleasure to work there and I was always proud to call myself a Unit B nurse.

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

I am fanatical about the Tour de France. I have been watching the tour for over 25 years. In the early days everyone thought I was crazy as I would take three weeks leave in July, just so I could stay at home and sit up to all hours of the night watching this race. I just find it such a tactical and amazing sport to watch.

• What do you like to do after work?

I love cooking, reading, catching up with family and friends for a meal and planning holidays for my lovely husband and me.

• Do you have a bucket list item? Something you would love to do?

I would love to go to France during the Tour de France and hire a camper van to follow the Tour around for three glorious weeks. ​

• How would you describe Northern Health in one sentence?

A health service that allows it’s staff to grow and explore many work options.

• Who would you nominate next for a staff profile and why?

I would like to nominate Robyn Johnson, Reception Services Manager at Bundoora Centre. She is like a human Google equivalent – if you need a question answered about the ins and outs at Bundoora she is your go-to person. ​

Unit 3 at Broadmeadows Hospital manages aged care patients with acute medical issues, as well as dementia and delirium and gets them back to a stage where they can go back home or into Residential Aged Care.

Lucia Bento, Nurse Unit Manager explains how Unit 3, a  28 bed ward has implemented a quality improvement activity called ‘diversional therapy’. This project has been developed to provide patients with activities to help keep them occupied, as well as assist in managing behaviours of concern.

“We have introduced things like colouring and doll therapy, which helps anxious or agitated patients,” Lucia said.

As part of the GEM (Geriatric and Evaluation Management) service, the staff also look after patients from the community who need multidisciplinary care with an allied health clinician. These clinicians come from a multi-disciplinary team and are made up of social workers, dieticians, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech pathologists, just to name a few. The aim of this program is to return patients to as close to their baseline function as possible and promote their independence with a view to returning home where possible.

“We have a lot of good stories with patients. For example, the team works hard to find the long-stay patients an appropriate place to go. We had a patient who was with us for a few months and we got her a guardian and found her a nursing home. That was a good achievement and we have numerous stories of successfully getting our patients back to their community,” she said.

One of the success stories Lucia and the team are proud of is getting a seventy year old patient back to eating regularly at home.

“We had a patient who was in and out of hospital. She was on nasogastric feeds and the team here worked hard to get this patient to a point where she could eat and get back home. That was a great outcome for the family too. The family gave us a lovely thank you card to show their appreciation of the care and support,” she said.

The team works in a challenging environment but is very well trained and great at what they do.

“We do aggression training and numerous study days, especially with dementia and delirium. The staff work as a team – we have introduced a buddy system on the ward through a quality project. Nurses know who they buddy is and they work together,” she said.

Lucia is proud that people want to come and work in the ward and that graduates who come to work there want to stay.

“It’s a good place to work,” she added.

Grant Taylor, Director of Nursing and Operations at Broadmeadows Hospital agrees with Lucia and speaks highly of the work that Lucia and her team of nurses and allied health clinicians undertake every day.

“Unit 3 is a dynamic, challenging and rewarding place to work. The care that the Unit 3 team provides on a daily basis, assists patients and their families greatly and helps our aged care population recover after an acute illness and get back on their feet,” he said.

Featured image (left to right): Nurses Lorraine Pearson, Jian Huo, Ann Lotrionte, Shine Kurian and the NUM Lucia Bento.

It’s a family affair this year at Northern Health with the first ever mother and daughter starting their careers together as graduate nurses in 2020.

Rina and Shivani Buldaho were two of the 52 excited graduate nurses and midwives welcomed to Northern Health in January.

Rina tells us she decided to pursue a career in nursing after she was inspired by her daughter completing her studies.

“I would help Shivani with questions sometimes, and then I developed an interesting in nursing so I enrolled in the mid-year diploma,” she said.

Rina’s daughter, Shivani, says it’s special to start her career alongside her mother at the same health service.

“We helped each other in university and now here we are starting our careers together,” she says.

“It will be a good opportunity to continue learning from each other,” she tells us.

Rina adds, “It’s something unique. We got to study together, graduate together and now work together!”

“They’re memories we can cherish forever.”

A northern suburbs local, Rina also says she is also looking forward to providing care to the community she lives in.

“We are absolutely delighted to have our first graduate mother and daughter starting their careers together at Northern Health,” said Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Debra Bourne.

“This year is even more special for Rina and Shivani, as 2020 marks the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, as declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale,” she added.

Northern Health is marking the year under the theme ‘Caring Together’ – to showcase our nursing staff and their contribution.

Last week, we welcomed Channel 7 News to Northern Hospital to talk to Rina, Shivani and Debra Bourne – check out the video below to hear from them!

Featured Image (left to right): Rina and Shivani Buldaho 

A new partnership between Northern Health and The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) has proven an outstanding success, with local parents giving the new scheme an average satisfaction rating of 9.2 out of 10.

The partnership, developed jointly by the Heads of Paediatrics and Nurse Unit Managers at both Northern Hospital and the RCH, is designed to allow children from the north to be cared for closer to their home.

Northern Health Clinical Director of Paediatrics, Dr David Tran, was integral to the development of the partnership which sees Northern Health aim to offer two beds per day for the RCH to transfer children who live in the northern catchment back to our hospital. Here they can be cared for by our highly dedicated paediatricians, paediatric nurses and allied health staff.

In the first 12 months of the partnership, we transferred 84 patients which was the equivalent of 146 bed days at the RCH that were freed up.

Northern Health has since collected feedback from patients and families on their satisfaction with the service, receiving an average rating of 9.2 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Ninety per cent of patients and families also noted they would return to Northern Hospital as their first choice closer to home.

Dr Tran said, “This partnership with The Royal Children’s Hospital has been an important part of caring for children – closer to their home. It helps the community build trust in our paediatric care and allows for their ongoing inpatient and outpatient follow up to be managed through Northern Health.”

The Northern Health Paediatric Unit also recently organised an educational seminar for local Maternal & Child Health Nurses (MCHNs), with the aim of engaging with our community and improving care to our patient cohort.

There was a fantastic response with 30 MCHNs attending the event with representatives from Hume, Moreland, Whittlesea, Mitchell, and Nillumbik Councils. Northern Health paediatricians, allied health clinicians and nursing staff volunteered their time to present a topic of interest to the community-based MCHNs.

“It was a fantastic opportunity to meet with some of our key primary carers, and provide updates on some important paediatric topics such as management of the preterm infants at home, feeding issues and gross motor delays in premature infants,” Dr Tran said.

The feedback from the MCHNs was overwhelmingly positive, with a strong interest in further partnerships and educational activities with Northern Health.

A team from Northern Health also recently shared the Northern Hospital and The Royal Children’s Hospital Collaborative Partnership with Children’s Healthcare Australasia at their Paediatric Units Face to Face Insight Forum. 

Children’s Ward Nurse Unit Manager, Courtney Lowry, said, “The forum was a wonderful opportunity for us to be able to showcase the great work that has been done with the partnership with so many colleagues from around Australia and New Zealand”.

(Featured Image: Ebony Albon with daughter, Maisie, at Northern Hospital) 

The Specialist Clinics across Northern Hospital, Broadmeadows Centre and Craigieburn Centre had a very busy and successful year in 2019.

Last year, Specialist Clinics managed 135,641 referrals, and the number was up from 130,800 in 2018. The number of attendances in clinics was 198,000 in 2019, up from 189,100 in 2018. Fail to attend rate prior to Q-Flow was around 22 per cent, and since the introduction of Q-Flow, it is down to 18.2 per cent, showing significant improvement.

“Our urgent KPI was 98.8 per cent in December, which means we are seeing patients who require an urgent appointment within 30 days of receiving a referral.  Only four referrals were outside that time frame and those patients were seen within a couple of days after the date. That is the highest for Northern Health ever,” explained Cathy Fletcher, Nurse Unit Manager.

The department has been through a lot of change. When the Q-Flow was introduced in October, it has made a huge difference in workflow and improved communication to patients. The clinics also introduced a new contact centre, with a 105,000 calls that came through that centre last year.

“We’ve had really good response with Q-Flow. It has definitely helped patients come for appointments because they have received their reminders. We have had a lot of great experience with the volunteers helping us with Q-Flow. From our point of view, it has been a great thing for patient experience, as for us as an organisation. We have had some challenges but they have now settled,” said Danalene Moss, Clerical Supervisor.

The team has embraced change is proud of the coordinated patient care they provide. On a busy day, around 950 patients are seen in the clinics.

“We had a situation when patient transport was unavailable due to demand, to get our patient home. He ended up being taken home in a taxi, escorted by one of our staff members,” said Carolyn Wallace, ANUM.

The team is also working between nursing and medical to facilitate best patient care.

“We had a patient with impaired mobility. A multi-disciplinary approach was needed for that patient that required a number of different people to see them. Our team coordinated for the patient to be seen in one area, and have three different clinicians, from three different services see them on that day. The patient was seen by all the right people on one occasion, not having to be come into appointments at different times,” said Vicki Hutchinson, Clinical Lead.

The team have acknowledged the help they had to make 2019 a very successful year of improving patient experience, including interpreters and a dedicated PSA for Specialist Clinics. Twenty percent of patients who present at specialist clinics need the help of the interpreter.

“Interpreters need a bit of a a shout too, they are doing a great job,”said Rebecca Clark, Clinical Nurse Specialist.

“Having Lal Cinzah, PSA with us for the past 18 months, has helped improve patient services. He is always happy assist, and nothing is too much trouble for him,” added Cathy, NUM.

When asked about what the team like most about working in specialist clinics, they resounding response was, “The team, camaraderie, diversity of work and independence. No day is the same. Just one thank you makes a day better.”

Featured image: Catherine Fletcher NUM (second from the right) with Northern Hospital Epping Specialist Clinic team