Tami Photinos, Executive Director
A reminder that nominations for our annual TPCH Staff Excellence Awards are now open until 5pm Monday 18 September.
These Awards are our opportunity to celebrate the achievements of staff across our hospital.
Due to a recent security upgrade, some staff have had difficulty accessing the nomination portal on Queensland Health computers. As a solution, we’ve developed a workaround for those who have been unable to submit using the original portal. You can nominate using this online form and your nomination will be imported into the system for you by the Communications team.
For those staff who have already submitted nominations, your nomination has been received, and you don’t need to do it again.
For more information visit TPCH Staff Excellence Awards QHEPS page.
For any queries or assistance please email:
MetroNorth-TPCH-Communications@health.qld.gov.au
Visiting with the Child Protection Unit team
I look forward to receiving your nominations.
Executive update
This week is National Child Protection Week, and Director Allied Health, Perry Judd and I took the opportunity to visit with members of the Child Protection Unit team who hosted an information display in the Café for the Common Good. The theme of the week was ‘Where we start matters‘ which was well illustrated by some colourful paintings donated by the children at TPCH Early Education Centre. It is important to remember that child protection is everyone’s business, and our Child Protection team is on hand to assist staff in supporting the safety of children and those children of patients in our care if needed. For more information visit the Metro North Child Protection site on QHEPS.
Celebrating Jersey Day in the Adult ICU
Last Friday, members of the Executive team and I celebrated Jersey Day to help raise awareness of organ and tissue donation. Director of Operations, Surgery and Critical Care Melanie Dubbelde and I visited our Adult Intensive Care Service where we met and chatted with staff, many of whom were wearing their bright yellow jerseys – we certainly couldn’t miss them! While there, we had the pleasure of speaking with transplant patients, Johno and Jenny, who had both specially come to TPCH to help staff promote this important cause. A big thanks to Johno and Jenny, and to the entire ICU team for helping shine the light on organ and tissue donation.
Have Your Say survey
Another issue regularly highlighted by staff through the Have Your Say survey is the appropriate use of physical resources including space, storage and equipment.
Here are some more ‘Messages in a Bottle’ I received that emphasise the issues followed by our response:
Messages in a Bottle
- Not enough space for staff and storage
- Stop using procedure rooms for inpatients when the hospital is busy
- Update equipment and resources, faster internet, more printers required.
- I absolutely love reading your email updates and seeing your selfies! I especially love how you profile and acknowledge different members/areas of the hospital.
Our response
Staff and storage
During the last 12 months, we have been reviewing accommodation and storage across the facility to support the ongoing delivery of high-quality patient care services.
TPCH Corporate Services undertook an audit of all accommodation across the facility to help understand how our physical footprint is currently configured. Staff were engaged and supportive of this process, expressing their dedication to TPCH and its people. The audit involved mapping out all areas within the hospital to determine whether our current arrangement of services and departments is aligned to meet our changing needs and priorities.
The audit resulted in the following:
- An overarching understanding of the accommodation pressures across the campus, highlighting areas which are over prescribed and some opportunities to optimise office utilisation.
- Identified opportunities to optimise accommodation by reviewing furniture and storage requirements, including removal of unused furniture like filing cabinets and book shelves which are no longer used.
- Consideration of contemporary workforce practices including hot desking, greater utilisation of room booking system to optimise use of meetings and tutorial rooms including their use for private conversations and supervision if required.
- Centralised storage opportunities.
- An opportunity to review current governance and processes surrounding accommodation.
- Identified opportunity to review the signage displayed outside office spaces to reflect current occupancy on correct Metro North templates.
Regarding storage, the following steps have been undertaken to adopt a more streamlined approach to this issue:
- Identified four major storage locations
- Project to clear the Lower Ground floor of the Clinical Sciences Building to create more space for Health Information Management records
- Established a process for requesting Patient Support Officers assistance for disposal, removal, and storage requests
- Improved identification of storage areas
- Established a centralised process for storage requests
- Reviewed contents of storage areas and selling unused equipment to create extra space.
Procedure room for inpatient care
The use of procedure rooms for inpatients is sometimes necessary when our patient access demand is high and our wards are at maximum capacity. We acknowledge that while procedure rooms are not ideal inpatient spaces, they are at times, the best place available to manage those patients who require admission. Prolonged patient stays in the ED can not only negatively impact a patient’s care and recovery process, they can also prevent other patients requiring emergency assessment and care from being seen in treatment areas, and delay ambulances from returning to the community.
Any procedure room used for inpatient care should have been reviewed by senior staff in that service to ensure it is set up to allow patients to receive safe care. Wherever possible, opening other beds or using areas such as the Transit Lounge and other day areas are always used as a first preference. Furthermore, procedure areas are used in preference and as a strategy to prevent the need to use open plan recovery areas, offering better access to patient care facilities.
Equipment
TPCH has an Asset Management Committee (AMC) responsible for making decisions regarding the acquisition and management of minor and capital equipment for TPCH, and
ensuring the most efficient use of resources to achieve operational objectives. The AMC at TPCH meets monthly to review the requirements submitted, both new and replacement (emergent or planned) equipment, and prioritise the requests within the facility capital allocation. With any request for new equipment, the following factors are considered by the Committee:
- whole of life cost
- patient care impact
- value for money
- replacement plan
- potential impact on existing or planned assets including buildings, land and equipment
In the 2022-23 financial year, TPCH AMC made decisions about equipment valued at $3,600,000.
ESM Go-Live
Thank you to everyone for their ongoing resilience and efforts to embed ESM into our outpatient service. Today is five weeks post go-live, marking the transition to business as usual.
There are a number of ongoing focus points where TPCH’s Executive team has invested additional support. A Teams forum is scheduled for Monday for all administration staff to discuss priorities, challenges and opportunities.
TPCH Charlies Week
A reminder that TPCH Charlies Week celebrations will run from 23 to 27 October 2023. This week, which aligns with the hospital’s birthday, is an opportunity for staff to come together and celebrate the great work we do here at TPCH. The week offers a variety of fun, educational and recognition activities and events that staff can get involved in – there’s something for everyone!
Find out how you can get involved by viewing the program.
FAST FACTS Members of the Children’s Ward team This week, we’ll profile the Children’s Ward and Short Stay Unit. Did you know?
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Staff profile
Rachael McCall
Because it’s Child Protection Week, today we’ll profile Child Protection Liaison Officer – Senior Social Worker, Rachael McCall.
Rachael provides consultation and advice on child protection matters to all staff of TPCH, community mental health and state-wide drug and alcohol services, and also delivers face-to-face training to all clinicians in high-risk areas.
As part of a small team that is the liaison point for the Department of Child Safety, Rachael enjoys providing clinical expertise, practical advice, and information where concerns for children and families are identified. Last year alone, she helped respond to almost 2,000 written requests for information!
As a Child Protection Social Worker of almost 25 years, Rachael is passionate about working with staff to ensure the protection, safety and well-being of children and young people, just commencing her research degree in this field.
Outside of work, Rachael is a mum of five which keeps her incredibly busy.
Shout out
Kerry Davenport (far right) with Cherie Franks (centre) and Tami Photinos.
This week’s shout out goes to Kerry Davenport, Enrolled Nurse Advanced Scope, who retired this week after 33 years of service to TPCH. Having worked in thoracic medicine for the majority of his career, Kerry is an extremely skilled nursing professional with a wealth of knowledge in caring for respiratory patients. He is considered an amazing nurse and role model who has given his unwavering dedication and care to so many patients and colleagues over the years. Kerry is a well-loved member of the Thoracic team and will be greatly missed. We thank Kerry for his service and dedication to the nursing profession at TPCH, and wish him and his family the very best.
Today’s quote
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”. – Desmond Tutu
Tami.