Tami Photinos, Executive Director, The Prince Charles Hospital
Today is Remembrance Day, when we honour those veterans who have died while serving in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations. At 11am, we will observe a minute silence which will be followed by the playing of the Last Post. I encourage you to set a reminder in your calendar or phone, switch your phone to silent, and where possible, pause to remember and respect those we have lost.
This week I had the pleasure of presenting at Metro North’s Next Care conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. My presentation was about what dogs can teach us about leadership, a topic inspired by my own pooch Panda, (who of course featured in my presentation). I chose this topic, not only because I’m a dog person, but because I believe dogs possess many qualities of a good leader. We can all learn a lot from our four legged friends!
COVID-19 update
Today marked the shift from ‘green’ to ‘amber’ in the COVID-19 traffic light system in Queensland, due to increased community transmission and hospitalisations for COVID-19 under the new variants.
For us in Metro North, this means we should all be wearing a mask while at work from today. In high risk areas this is a P2/N95 mask. In all other areas this is a well fitted, flat surgical mask. When you are in a non-clinical area and sitting in a physically distanced area, you are able to remove your mask. Please wear a mask when you are in a clinical area and/or moving about our facilities.
Please ensure:
- Hand sanitisation stations are fully stocked.
- Masks are readily available for staff and visitors.
- We are supporting safe visits at all times – we have no restrictions on visitors for any reason.
- We have adequate RAT supplies – for staff who are close contacts, these are available from your line manager, Duty Nurse Managers (Ext. 5903) or Infection Control (Ext 4894).
- You stay home if you are unwell and maintain good hand hygiene and social distancing where possible.
Returning COVID-19 impacted staff to work
Please note the following process that staff need to follow if they have tested positive or are in quarantine, when planning their return to the workplace.
| Step 1 | If you test positive for COVID or are a close contact notify your line manager and email TPCHContacttracing@health.qld.gov.au with your name and mobile phone number |
| Step 2 | Staff member will be contacted by TPCH Contact Tracing (5 days a week service) upon notification. Their situation will be assessed and staff member provided with a potential return to work date. Health Care Worker’s cannot return to work for 7 days post COVID positive result. |
| Step 3 | Staff member to notify their line manager of potential return to work date. |
| Step 4 | For a staff member who is a close contact and asymptomatic, they can be considered as an essential employee for return to work. The line manager will email TPCHContacttracing@health.qld.gov.au with their name and mobile phone number. The line manager completes the online essential worker exemption via this link Microsoft FORM, the delegate will approve or decline the request.
Staff who return to work as an essential worker must meet the following criteria –
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| Step 5 | Staff member will be contacted on Day 7 of their isolation or quarantine to ensure conditions have been met for release and TPCH Contact Tracing Service will give staff member official approval to return to work. |
| Step 6 | Staff member is to notify their line manager that they have been released from Isolation or Quarantine and that they are able to return to work. |
TPCH Charlies Week
TPCH Charlies Week is now only just over two weeks away, 28 November to 2 December. It will be an exciting and jam-packed week offering a great range of fun, informative, and reward and recognition activities designed to say thank you to staff for all the excellent work you do throughout the year.
Activities include:
- Staff Wellness Day
- The Common Good Charity Giving Day
- Fun staff activities (you’ll need to register)
- Staff Excellence Awards
- Length of Service Awards
- Ward Dress Up Competition
- Celebrity Comedy Night
- Food
Please check out the program and join in where you can.
Executive Walkarounds
This week, I had the opportunity to attend a Physiotherapy staff meeting where I was brought up to speed with the team’s current activities. I heard updates from the various clinical leads as well as from working group leads who shared information about current clinical and research projects. Staff also provided an update on their preparations for Accreditation. A very valuable learning experience!
On Wednesday, Director of Allied Health, Perry Judd and I visited Medical Imaging in acknowledgement of it being World Radiographer’s Day. A big shout out to our hard working radiographers who support the imaging and treatment of around 12,000 patients every month. Well done!
Manager Strategy and Performance, Katie Tully and I also visited Health Information Services where we had the chance to briefly chat with some of our clinical coding team. This busy team of 13, has the important job of reviewing the entire patient medical record for each admission, and translating the information into correct diagnosis and procedure codes so that clinical care is accurately represented and funded.
While in Health Information Services, we met Shayne Green, one of our friendly Administration Officers currently working in the mail room. Good to chat Shayne!
During my travels, I also came across one of our lower ground allied health storage cages which admittedly gave me a big surprise, as you can see from my reaction below. (I am big on order!) I appreciate that managing storage space is an ongoing challenge for many areas and departments, especially when everyone is so busy. So I encourage you to try and keep your storage areas as organised and neat as possible. I gave the staff responsible for the allied health storage space, the challenge of tidying up the area as quickly as possible, and they certainly exceeded expectation. The before and after photos are below. Thanks team for sorting this space out so promptly.
FAST FACTS
This week we will share some fast facts about TPCH Switchboard.
Did you know?:
- That on an average weekday, the Switchboard takes over 6,000 calls, and on weekends, around 3,000 calls. This translates to approximately 36,000 calls every week or around 1.8 million calls each year.
- The Switchboard team consists of 16 staff who work on a rotating 24/7 roster.
- Last month, the team responded to over 260 emergency calls which included arrests, MET, stroke codes and code blacks. They also responded to over 20 after hour call-ins for the Cab Lab and Operating Theatres.
- The team monitors all Ryan’s Rule calls, and provides a back-up monitoring service for the Security’s Control Room’s equipment
- Switch provides a replacement service for faulty bedside phones, DECT phones, desk phones and pagers.
The team fields a variety of inquiries ranging from car parking, accommodation, florists and even bus timetables.
Staff Profile
As we celebrated World Radiographer’s Day this week, today we will profile Senior Radiographer, Kara McDonald.
Kara enjoys the variety of radiography, with each day offering different cases and patients, Her role can involve a CT brain perfusion for a stroke code in the emergency department, routine chest x-rays, diagnostic angiogram in the Cath lab, or dynamic hip screw imaging in theatre.
Having previously worked as a radiographer in the UK and at the Sunshine Coast University Hospital, as well as a researcher at QUT’s Medical Engineering Research, Kara values the interaction that being a radiographer offers, curiosity, and also, caffeine!
As the first point of call when it comes to patient diagnosis, Kara enjoys the challenge of best demonstrating the area or pathology that answers the clinical question at hand.
Outside of work, Kara is a frequent jet setter and enjoys holidays. With the world now opening up after COVID, she plans on travelling across the globe whenever possible. She also likes whittling, the art of carving shapes out of raw wood. Her forte is spoons!
Special Keynote presentation – Monday 14 November
Professor Kathryn Maitland OBE – “The challenges of conducting controlled trials in critically ill children in low resource settings.”
Shout out
This week’s shout out goes to our Health Information Service team for their outstanding work in supporting the collection, storage, analysis and distribution of health care information at TPCH. This team works in partnership with the hospital to improve knowledge, awareness and compliance in the areas of activity counting, clinical coding, data quality, systems management, provision of patient information for ongoing care, clinical forms, clinical documentation, patient privacy, security of patient information and release of information. This team’s ‘behind the scenes’ work contributes to the ongoing delivery of high quality and efficient patient care.
The other shout out goes to TPCH Orthopaedic Department which has been acknowledged for its clinical activity, having seen more patients on time for a service event than the GIRFT average. The GIRFT (Getting It Right First Time) program is a quality improvement initiative that focuses on addressing system-level barriers to optimise value in orthopaedic care for patients, clinicians and the Queensland public health care system. TPCH was acknowledged for being among the highest performing of all GIRFT Queensland facilities with several exemplar findings and improvements. Well done team!
Today’s quote
“A leader one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John. C Maxwell
Tami Photinos
Executive Director