Today we are excited to bring Percy Cleland Wing (PCW) and KAW-Mental Health at Bundoora Centre under the wings of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR).
Today’s clinical transitions were completed before 2 pm. A big thank you to our clinical transition team, super users and Nurse Unit Managers (NUMs) for their support and hard work for the past two days.
Key messages of the day:
If you are a nursing/midwifery/doctor, make sure you perform a password sync before your ward goes live – click on this link and enter your new password. This will take up to 24 hours to take effect. If you have already completed this during training, please disregard this message.
Any discharges back to Northern Hospital Epping until they go live, the patient will return to paper at Epping.
Tomorrow, Unit 1, Acute – BIPU, BIPU – Aged, Operating Theatres, and Recovery at Broadmeadows Hospital will be going live with the EMR.
Some photos from today’s go live at PCW and KAW-Mental Health below:
The Clinical Leadership, Effectiveness and Outcomes (CLEO) team recently began a co-design project to recognise the value of lived experience and create safer, higher quality and more efficient care.
Known as the Co-Design with Consumers@Northern Health project, the project aims to create and implement a co-design framework and toolkit that will support clinicians and non-clinical staff to work confidently and effectively with consumers and/or carers with lived experience when designing or redesigning models of care.
This framework will provide staff with a convenient reference to equip them with the tools and approach to deliver improved experiences. The toolkit will provide access to training, education and resources and support from trained Northern Health co-design champions.
Patient outcomes are the ultimate goal for any healthcare intervention, and co-design plays an integral role in improving them.
Co-design is a collaborative approach that involves partnering consumers with lived experience together with stakeholders with professional experience to design and develop healthcare services, products, or solutions using shared decision making. It plays a major role in the future of effective healthcare, enables consumers who are most affected by a design or policy to become equal partners and ensures solutions are developed to meet the needs of the people they’re impacting.
The concept of co-design is rooted in the belief that the best healthcare solutions are those co-created with the people they are meant to serve. Dr Bill Shearer, Executive Director, Transformation Quality and Safety, said co-design is a powerful tool in continuing Northern Health’s transformation journey.
“The principles and methodologies of co-design are the perfect expression of our organisational values of safe, kind and particularly together,” he said.
The CLEO team joined forces with Patient Experience, Mental Health representatives and consumers to form a working group to identify and co-produce the structure and development of resource content.
As part of the project, 12 Northern Health staff members were invited to attend a two-day co-design training workshop in June that was led by Professor Sonja Pedell and Gareth Priday from Swinburne University Future Self and Design Living Lab.
The workshop covered co-design principles and methodologies, how to use co-design within Northern Health projects and quality improvement service redesign, how to run a co-design workshop with consumers with lived experience, and preparing co-design resources.
After the success of the first workshop, there will be another opportunity for staff to attend the training in November later this year. These participants will go on to become our Northern Health co-design champions.
Kathy Varnava, Patient Experience and Consumer Participation Manager, said placing patients and their families at the heart of the design process and fostering patient-centred care, healthcare providers can gain valuable insights into the experiences, concerns and needs of those aim to assist, leading to tailored and empathetic care.
“Consumers with lived experience who participate in co-design projects provide an opportunity to support any project design. Staff have the opportunity to listen and learn from the consumers experience, to enhance the planned goals and outcomes for projects being designed that ultimately will improve health care service delivery for all patients at Northern Health,” she said.
If you are interested in becoming a Northern Health co-design champion and attending the training workshop in November this year, please complete the expression of interest form.
Ward 1 and Kath Atkinson Unit (KAW-Age) goes live today, followed by KAW-Mental Health and Percy Cleland Wing on 6 September.
During go live, staff will be supported by EMR Super Users and EMR Command Centre. There will be 24/7 support during the first two weeks of go live. Staff can also call the EMR Help Desk at 8345 5555 and press 2 for EMR when promoted.
Staff will also see the EMR support team roaming around Northern Health wearing bright colours. EMR Super Users will be in green vests, while the EMR team will be in blue polos. If you have any questions, make sure you reach out to one of us – we are here to help!
Leanne Shannon, Nurse Unit Manager – KAW-Aged, and Abhijith Anand, Nurse Unit Manager – Ward One, are both very excited for the EMR to go live in their wards. As super users themselves, they have been spending the past few months preparing their staff for today.
“Ward One and KAW being the first wards to go live, we were conscious of leading by example by proactively preparing for the EMR Launch. As superusers, we have laid the groundwork by encouraging honest feedback or concerns from our team, and demonstrating that all opinions are valued,” said Leanne and Abhijith.
Trish Aldridge, EMR Program Director, thanked everyone involved in the EMR journey.
“The exciting part of our journey is finally here, and we look forward to working with you as we operationalise our new system. Please remember we are here to support you, and together we will be very successful with our transition,” said Trish.
Tomorrow we will bring KAW-Mental Health and Percy Cleland Wing under EMR. Thank you to all the super users supporting the go live today!
EMR key messages for today:
If your ward is not live with an EMR yet, use this time to do some final practice in the EMR
Advance Care Planning is a process whereby a person with capacity prepares themselves and their Medical Treatment Decision Maker for a time when the person may lack capacity to make their own decisions, or to communicate those decisions.
Advance Care Planning asks and answers the question “who would speak for you, and would they know what you would want?”
The Northern Health Advance Care Planning (ACP) program supports consumers aged 18 and over throughout the Northern catchment. The team consists of three staff members, A/Prof. Barbara Hays, Clinical Lead, Ella Critchley, Advance Care Planning Program Manager and Karen Overall, Administration Support.
A/Prof. Barbara Hayes has worked at Northern Health with the ACP program for the past 16 years, and over this time has gained experience and knowledge about ACP and related legislation. She has an interest in ethics and law related to end-of-life decision-making and is also involved in a number of research studies related to end-of-life decision-making and care.
Ella Critchley has recently joined the team as the ACP program Manager. Ella is a nurse with extensive experience in gerontology and academia. Her recent research focused on dementia literacy of formal carers working in Residential Aged Care Facilities throughout Australia.
“Since joining Northern Health, I’ve been made to feel exceptionally welcome and look forward to becoming more involved in teaching and in supporting consumers wishing to undertake Advance Care Planning,” says Ms Critchley.
Karen Overall, Administration Support has been with the ACP team for 16 years and brings a broad knowledge of Northern Health and the community to the role. Karen is passionate about ACP and enjoys being part of the team.
The program aim is to increase awareness and knowledge of ACP within Northern Health and the local community. This is done by collaborating with other professionals and already established programs, and the launch of a new program strategy for 2023-26 which includes five priorities:
Consumers and Community
Program Innovation
Education and Research
Governance, and
Partnerships.
“While we support consumers and healthcare professionals with ACP, we recognise that the best time to initiate it is before an acute event – hence our strong focus on community education,” says Ms Critchley.
This year, ACP education will use a hybrid of face-to-face and online options. The team are planning to develop micro-learning modules for staff to access small, bite-size information on ACP related topics. Their aim is to provide education in a user-friendly, digital format to support point of need and real-time adoption.
On 14 November 2023, the team will be running a one-day Advance Care Planning workshop for Northern Health clinical staff across all disciplines at Bundoora Centre. For those interested, places can be booked on their intranet site.
“We are working with the incredible educators throughout Northern Health and welcome any invitations to speak at meetings, in-services or over a cuppa,” says Ms Critchley.
“We are also on the lookout for new community partnerships in order to support, inform and engage with potential consumers outside Northern Health. If you know of any organisations or can think of some opportunities, please let us know.”
During the pandemic, the team found it challenging to deliver consumer education face-to-face and to facilitate the witnessing of Advance Care Planning documents due to the visiting restrictions. However, they showed resilience during unprecedented times and managed to persevere.
In 2023, the team are looking forward to collaborating with Northern Health healthcare professionals and continuing to work with consumers and community partners to grow knowledge of ACP and patient consent.
“Please do visit our intranet site, and if you’re visiting Bundoora Centre, come and say hi. We are here to support you, so please don’t hesitate to reach out. It would be a pleasure to connect and collaborate!” says Ms Critchley.
Northern Health Advance Care Planning team at the City of Whittlesea Ageing Well 2023 Expo on 20 June. Pictured (L-R): Ella Critchley, Lisa Manago, Oksana Kasapis, Barbara Hayes and Karen Overall.
Pictured in featured image (L-R): Ella Critchley, Program Manager, Advance Care Planning, A/Prof. Barbara Hays, Clinical Lead and Karen Overall, Administration Support.
Meet Dr Richard Sia, GP Liaison Officer, Northern Health.
Q: What is your coffee order?
A: Small latte, no sugar.
Q: Tell us about your new role at Northern Health?
A: I am Northern Health’s GP Liaison Officer. This is a new position working in the Primary Care Liaison Unit within the partnerships team. Our primary role is to identify and implement strategies that will improve the continuity of care and communication between Northern Health and General Practitioners.
Q: What is the most exciting part of your job?
A: Meeting people from the hospital, local practices and the community. I enjoy organising education events for GPs and working on quality and improvement. We have a few education events in the pipeline and are working on a few projects within Northern Health.
Q: What is your ideal work-life balance?
A: Travelling around the world on someone else’s yacht while getting paid. Otherwise, a decent trip per year to avoid the Melbourne winter. Trying out new restaurants and heading out to Timezone on the weekends.
Q: Would you rather be able to travel into the future or into the past?
A: Definitely the future, I’ve been to the past already and it was so so.
Northern Health consumers are making a difference and improving health care processes and outcomes by regularly participating on various committees and focus groups and by being a patient voice during reviews.
Standard 2 ‘Partnering with Consumers’ happens at different levels of the health service including, individual service, department or program of care, health service governance, policy and planning.
The purpose of these partnerships is to improve the outcomes, experiences and the delivery of care by drawing on the knowledge, skills and experiences of people who are using, have used or may use the health service in future.
The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) is going live across Northern Health from next week. In the lead-up to go live, it was important for Northern Health to engage members from the Northern Health Consumer Network to advise on some of the key messages and campaigns of the EMR, including:
What is an EMR and what will it mean for Northern Health consumers
Patient privacy
What to expect when Northern Health launches an EMR
Patient journey at Northern Health
The EMR Change and Communications Advisory committee prepared early for partnering with consumers and patients considering options for consumer engagement. Early in the project, a Northern Health Consumer Network member was involved in an EMR staff facing video. This year, more consumers were engaged in a focus group and the health literacy CLEAR group to assist with ‘Go Live’ communications campaign and patient facing materials.
“It was a pleasure to work with the EMR team to engage consumers in a range of activities to assist with this important project,” says Sherrilyn Ballard, Consumer Participation Coordinator.
The EMR team was also delighted to work with Northern Health Consumer Network members on this project. In March 2023, the EMR team attended a consumer education session to provide background information on the project, benefits, what patients may see during the go-live, optimisation and ways to be involved moving forward.
Consumers were invited to attend a follow-up focus group to assist with patients facing materials development. Consumers provided feedback on ways to best promote the EMR, key messages for consumers, patient information brochure and distribution points.
“To understand fully what our consumers would like to find out about the EMR, the team ran a focus group in May. Four consumers came and provided valuable feedback on how to best communicate about the go live, as well as specific topics that they and the community would’ve liked to know more about,” said Ginnie Leung, Communications Advisor and Training Administrator EMR.
One of the consumers, Mary Shell, has continued her interest in the EMR through a range of consumer activities. Mary has had the opportunity to hear how the EMR will positively impact patients on their journey though the health service from her involvement on the Assessment and Care Planning Standard 5 Sub-Committee. She also attended the EMR education and later the focus group.
“I think it was really important to be involved in the focus groups and to be able to contribute to the EMR rollout, especially from a consumer point of view. In the long run, the EMR will not only benefit the clinical staff at Northern Health, in the sense of having easy access to information, but patients too, from the time of their assessment, right to the time of discharge. I think this change will be wonderful,” said Ms Shell.
Mary added that she, as well as the other consumers, are very excited about the final outcome and would like to stay involved and continue to contribute in the future.
“Thank you to the consumer representatives for helping the EMR team on coming up with key messages for consumer facing communications on the EMR go live. This piece of work will come to fruition in September, and we are all looking forward to it,” said Ms Leung.
Pictured in featured image (L-R): Mary Shell, Consumer and Sherrilyn Ballard, Consumer Participation Coordinator.
The Clinical Leadership, Effectiveness and Outcomes (CLEO) team has launched two video animations on Patient Reported Outcomes Measures (PROMs) and Shared Decision Making (SDM).
The videos have been developed as a fundamental education and communication tool to help patients understand the purpose and importance of collecting PROMs, and how their responses will be used throughout their care to inform their treatment.
The videos aim to present complex information about PROMs and SDM in a clear, concise and easily understandable manner. By using animated visuals, the content is more engaging and accessible. Both videos also aim to increase patient’s awareness and understanding of outcomes-based care, by ensuring patients are well informed about the purpose and benefits on taking an active role in their healthcare, fostering a more collaborative and informed approach to their treatment.
The videos also emphasise Northern Health’s commitment to person-centred care, by highlighting the importance of an individual’s goals, values and preferences in decisions around their care.
Led by Dr Katharine See, Chief Health Outcomes Officer, CLEO, a co-design working group was also formed, comprising of clinical and non-clinical staff, as well as consumers, who provided valuable advice and feedback during all stages of development of the video scripts and storyboards.
Dr See said Northern Health is an emerging leader in the outcomes-based care space.
“These videos are designed to help the community understand our goal for healthcare moving forward,” she said.
“Asking ourselves, ‘What matters most to our patients and community?’ needs to underpin everything we do to ensure a sustainable healthcare system for the future.”
PROMs and SDM have emerged as pivotal approaches in improving patient outcomes, shifting the dynamic between patients and healthcare providers from passive acceptance to collaborative engagement.
Empowering patients to actively participate in the healthcare journey, sees them feel valued and respected as equal partners in the decision-making process. As patients gain a comprehensive understanding of their conditions and available treatment options, they experience a sense of control over their health.
Anne-Marie Fabri, Associate Director, Associate Director, Community Programs and Chairperson, Standard 2 Consent and Shared Decision-Making Sub-CIC, said involving consumers in organisation-wide projects, was the best way to achieving person-centred care.
“When we involve the consumer and ask them about what is important to them, and what are the treatment outcomes they would find acceptable, then we are better able to tailor treatment options to that person. It is our best way to achieving person centred care,” she said.
“This new video about shared decision making helps consumers understand the value they can bring when they join us in the decision-making process.”
Both video animations are available as a shared resource for all Northern Health staff to use to introduce and explain PROMs and SDM in a user-friendly format to patients. Northern Health partnered with Motion By Design to develop the two videos.
The Northern Health Pharmacy department has a dedicated team of close to 100 pharmacists and 30 pharmacy technicians who are responsible for timely and safe medicine supply across all Northern Health sites.
At Northern Hospital Epping, the main pharmacy is located on the ground floor near Outpatients, whilst a separate satellite pharmacy is on the ground floor of the Main Ward Block.
“You’ll find most of our team members mixing amongst the clinical staff across the wards of Bundoora Centre, Broadmeadows Hospital and Northern Hospital Epping, however, where they play a critical role is optimising medication management and providing medicine information to both our consumers and other health professionals,” said Jier Ngyuen, Deputy Director, Pharmacy Operations.
Like many other departments, the Pharmacy team faced numerous challenges during the pandemic, including staff shortages, interruptions in medication supply chains and redeployment of resources to set up vaccination hubs and coordinate COVID-19 medication supply.
Despite the challenges, the team displayed resilience and adaptability in the face of adversity and are proud to have been able to contribute to the pandemic response.
Jier said whilst the pharmacy’s core services across dispensary, procurement and the inpatient wards remain strong, the team is looking forward to the further expansion and specialisation of pharmacy practice in 2023 and beyond.
“The Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) is one space that houses a wealth of opportunities for pharmacy involvement, as does our recent inclusion in Pre-Admission Clinic (PAC) and our Stewardship positions (covering Analgesic, Anticoagulation and Antimicrobial streams),” he said.
“We are also ready to embrace new technology to optimise our workflows, including not only the introduction of EMR in September, but also the use of automated dispensing cabinets and electronic medication registers in the not-to-distant future.”
“We hope these improved efficiencies will increase our availability to expand our clinical service into a unit-based model and continue our work to roll out Partnered Pharmacist Medication Charting (PPMC) across the network.”
Featured image: Some of the Pharmacy team members in the Satellite Pharmacy.
