This week, Cancer Council Victoria launched a new campaign raising awareness about the link between sugary drinks and obesity, as well as certain cancers.

A shocking advert showing toxic fat inside a patient’s body was featured as part of the campaign video.

Amy Johns, Northern Health Clinical Dietician, says there are a large number of overweight and obese clients seen at Craigieburn Health Service every day.

“I complete one-to-one individualised nutrition counselling sessions and find that sugar-sweetened beverages make up a large part of people’s diets nowadays,” she says.

“These sugars are hidden in drinks and are high in kilojoules (i.e. calories) which lead to weight gain and obesity.”

If you consume one can of soft drink every day for a year, it is estimated you will gain approximately 6.75 kilograms.

The rise in sugary drink consumption, especially amongst children, has led staff at Craigieburn Health Service to take action, creating their own ‘Rethink your drink’ display.

The visual display shows different soft drinks and the amount of sugar they contain in clear bags.

“A 600mL bottle of regular Coca Cola, for example, contains 16 teaspoons of sugar. You wouldn’t eat 16 teaspoons of sugar, so why would you drink it?” Amy says.

The eye-opening display is receiving great feedback from staff and parents.

“If you don’t see the sugar visually like that, you just don’t know it’s there!”

Welcome to Paediatric Week – where we celebrate the paediatric population within our community and those presenting to Northern Health.

The week will focus on education and awareness amongst our dynamic nursing staff who look after children across several departments.

Educational sessions and skill stations will be held at Northern Hospital Epping, showcasing the diversity of paediatrics within Northern Health and ways to improve and promote healthcare delivery.

Pamela Perera, Paediatric Clinical Nurse Educator, encourages all staff with an interest in paediatric nursing to attend.

“These sessions will help staff to build knowledge and exposure in the management of our paediatric patients,” she says.

Themed days will also run throughout the week encouraging all departments to get involved and embrace their inner child. Yesterday, staff marked the occasion by having a crazy hair day.

Pamela says the paediatric nursing educating team assists in professional development of our nurses across Northern Health, to provide excellence in paediatric care.

“Collaboration with education teams and departments has demonstrated active participation in paediatrics, and has ultimately standardised the care provided across our organisation,” she says.

We encourage staff to celebrate the world of paediatrics, and in the wise words of Dr Suess – “be kind to your small person friends.”

Please click here for the full event schedule.

This week is Occupational Therapy (OT ) Week, where we celebrate the wonderful work of our occupational therapists in helping people at all stages of life reach their potential.

Occupational Therapy is a client-centred health profession concerned with promoting health and wellbeing through therapeutic interventions.

It assists with returning function to patients who have experienced a specific event such as injury or illness.

Northern Health employs more than 60 occupational therapists who work in inpatient, ambulatory (outpatient) and community settings, providing services to all ages from newborns to seniors.

Associate Director, Allied Health – Occupational Therapy, Sue Pike, is thankful to be part of such a hard working team.

“I am extremely appreciative to work with such a dedicated and flexible team of occupational therapists, who not only provide excellent care to their patients, but also support one another and work collaboratively with their colleagues,” she says.

Grade 3 occupational therapist, Tameeka Robertson, also feels the same.

“I have been an OT at Northern Health for seven years and it is the team members that I work with that keep me coming back for more,” she says.

For more information about Northern Health Occupational Therapy please click here.

This week we are encouraging staff to ‘Think Pink’, focus on breast cancer, and its impact on those affected in our community.

Breast cancer remains the most common type of cancer among Australian women (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer).

On average, 8 people die of breast cancer every day. The risk of being diagnosed with cancer by age 85 is 1 in 8 for women.

However survival rates continue to improve, with 89 out of every 100 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer now surviving five or more years beyond diagnosis.

Northern Health Breast Care Nurse, Cheryl Murray, would like staff to take time this week to be breast aware.

“If you haven’t started breast screening – start it now!” she said.

Cheryl encourages all departments to participate in the ‘Pink Up Your Door’ competition and get creative:

“The most creative door will win a $100 Coles Myer Gift Card!”

For more resource material and additional information on how you can support breast cancer awareness, visit the ‘Pink up your door’ page on Northern Health’s intranet.

Cheryl left us with this thought -“1 in 8 women in Australia will get breast cancer. That’s something to pink about!”

Look Good Feel Better is a workshop run by the Cancer Patients Foundation, helping to improve the wellbeing and confidence of people undergoing treatment for cancer. Over the ten years the workshop has been running at Northern Health, it has supported over 350 patients with cancer. Watch below to discover one patient’s story.

This week, Northern Health hosted an Emergo exercise.

Emergo is a mass casualty simulation exercise facilitated by the Department of Health and Human Services and Ambulance Victoria to evaluate an organisation’s incident management systems, disaster preparedness and resilience.

The simulated ‘code brown’ disaster was a train crash on the Epping line, including a fire and suspected terrorist involvement.

Over the duration of the exercise, Northern Health received 121 casualties into the emergency department, with some managed in emergency, others referred to ICU and theatre, and some being transferred to other health services.

The simulation included complexities involving resources, such as running out of ventilators and blood.

A full Incident Management Team was formed, and functioned throughout the entire exercise.

Clinical staff and support services were based on the third floor of Northern Centre for Health Education and Research (NCHER) and worked through the triage, transfers, admission, care and discharge for each of the ‘patients’ which were presented relentlessly by Ambulance Victoria.

The exercise also involved the preparation and provision of media releases and a press conference, with Chief Medical Officer, Dr Alison Dwyer, as the spokesperson.

The simulation was followed by a formal debrief session with staff and Emergo facilitators.

The Northern Health facilitator of the event, Jason Cirone, said we received very positive feedback on our performance, and expressed his appreciation to all staff who were involved.

“The Emergency Planning Committee would like to thank everyone involved in the planning and all those who participated on the day.”

“The exercise has reinforced our critical incident management systems and processes, and our confidence in managing a real external disaster,” he said.

This week Northern Health held the inaugural Staff Recognition Awards, acknowledging teams and individuals in a wide range of areas who have demonstrated commitment to high quality outcomes.

The six categories and their winners were presented by our Chief Executive Siva Sivarajah, who said that staff recognised at these Awards are exemplars in a positive culture of respect, integrity and care for our patients and each other.

“We know that our staff are key to Northern Health providing excellent care for our patients. Every day, I see examples of how our staff strive to improve care and the experience of patients and families,” he said.

We are delighted to present the six categories and their winners:

1.       Patient Experience – recognising an individual or team who made a significant achievement in improving the care experience.

Winner: Jessica Permezel

2.       Compassionate care – recognising an individual or team who has shown kindness and compassion towards a patient, family or work colleague.

Winner: Marie Iacopino

3.       Excellence in Safety – recognising a team or individual who has assisted in making Northern Health safer for patients, visitors or staff.

Winner: Dean Pritchard

4.       Innovation – recognising a team or individual who implemented a better way to deliver care or service through a new idea or initiative.

Winner: Justine Slattery

5.       Above and Beyond – an individual who has gone above and beyond in providing care or support to a patient, family or work colleague.

Winner: Vikramjit Multani

6.       Rising Star – a staff member recognised as having great potential to grow and develop in their career at Northern Health.

Winner: Lauren Rogers

Northern Health would like congratulate all the winners and thank our nominators, their teams, and our generous sponsors BankVic and Maxxia.

 

 

 

 

On a recent humid Darwin day, I sat in a room full of people passionate about health service management, waiting for the final speaker of the Australasian College of Health Service Management (ACHSM) Congress.

It had been a huge week, jam-packed with inspirational presentations, sharing of ideas and the forming of new connections.

The closing keynote was to be delivered by iconic journalist and TV personality, Ray Martin, whose status may have been lost somewhat on the international delegates and those too young to remember his dominance in lounge rooms across Australia.

From the minute Ray commenced talking, he drew his audience into the story of his life and his experience of Aboriginal people in his past and up to the current day.

In much more eloquent phrasing, Ray implored us to simply do better for our Indigenous people.

Ray posed the provocative conclusion that to date, our efforts in truly closing the gap have been shameful. With so many examples across the country of good ideas and passionate well-meaning groups working tirelessly, it was confronting to hear his absolute position on the topic. A position that is quite possibly justified.

When thinking about the diverse and integrated solutions Ray suggested are necessary to really make a difference in this area, it reminded me of our own challenge here at Northern Health, in embarking on a greater focus on ‘Staying Well’.

It may well be a similar list of diverse, yet integrated solutions that we need to consider for our community. A list that is equally unachievable without numerous groups working in partnership towards a shared purpose.

To commence this exciting and indeed worthy endeavour, we ran an ‘Ideas Lab’ session on 4 October 2018 to explore what the concept of ‘staying well’ means to us. A broad range of external people were included in the discussions to help inject fresh ideas and shift the lens through which we view this challenge.

After setting the scene with the common process steps of ‘coming in, getting better, going home, and staying well’, the group of about 50 heard thought-provoking presentations including:

1. Trevor Read, Lightfoot Solutions, talking about the Canterbury NZ experience and forming effective alliance arrangements with a commitment to shared purpose and objectives.

2. Rebecca Jessup, Monash University, breaking down the components of health literacy, including the necessary attributes of health organisations to support health literacy.

3. David Platt, Philips Healthcare, describing virtual models of care already in use across the globe.

4. Daniel Witherington, EY, explored the concept of engaged aging, including how we might engage in creative partnerships and how disruptive technologies could support sustainable aging.

5. Matiu Bush, Bolton Clark and One Good Street, finished the session by grounding us with examples of making significant improvements to people’s lives through social connectedness and simple community initiatives.

As we continue to tackle this pursuit and narrow down the possible strategic directions we might work towards to support our community in ‘staying well’, I encourage you to contribute to the conversation and join in on setting the direction for what might be possible. If you’re keen to join in, contact myself (Briana.Baass@nh.org.au) or the HRO team (HRO@nh.org.au).

Briana Baass, Chief Allied Health Officer

 

What an enjoyable night it was at Northern Health’s Annual Dinner.

It was a night filled with great entertainment, laughter, good food and numerous prizes, as well as support from everyone involved.

Yvonne Amos, Northern Health Foundation Director, expressed her gratitude to all that attended.

“Thank you to our sponsors, supporters, volunteers and Northern Health staff for getting behind our 2018 Annual Dinner in support of the Children’s Ward at Northern Hospital Epping,” she said.

By joining forces, the Northern Health Annual Dinner raised just over $80,000 to support the purchase of medical equipment and upgrading of our Children’s Ward and play area.

“We’ve all been working together to raise these funds and make a difference in the care we provide to our youngest patients and the support available for their families,” Yvonne said.