Dear Colleagues,

Happy Friday – can you believe May is upon us already!! This morning’s cooler weather is a timely reminder that Winter and our flu season are about to begin ramping up so please make sure you’ve received your flu vaccination! Another great week across Metro North with no new positive confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Today’s updates include:

• Administrative Professional’s Day
• Working from Home – Staff returning to Work
• COVIDSafe App
• Evaluation Framework for New and Changed Models of Care Through COVID-19

Administrative Professional’s Day

As today is Administrative Professional’s Day, I thought it fitting to take the time to thank our administrators of Metro North. Without our precious AO workforce, we simply wouldn’t be able to deliver the standard of healthcare we do every day. I am very very thankful every day for the expert team that stands behind me within Medical Services. Their support and professionalism is first class. To all our Administration Officers across the health service, thank-you for all you do!!

Working from Home Staff Returning to Work

By now, staff currently working from home who are not considered vulnerable are preparing to return to work from next week. Please be assured that during this transition, we will continue to implement new ways of working to accommodate social distancing in our workplaces to the extent reasonably practicable.  The health and safety of Metro North staff and families remain our highest priority and our practices continue to be guided by advice from the Queensland Health and the Australian Public Service Commission.

Some practical tips for your workplace include:

• Consider workstations changes where possible such as layout changes to allow staff to sit 1.5m apart or install a physical barrier between workstations.
• Consider changes to work routines where there are shared offices – such as staggered work times, staggered clinic times.
• Where possible, still make use of technology to run meetings and training
• Take lunch outside
• Regularly clean your communal areas, including lunch rooms and office areas
• Make regular use of hand washing facilities

It is safe for our staff to use lifts as time required to be spent in them is minimal. Lifts across Metro North are cleaned and disinfected regularly. We recommend that there should be no more than four people in a lift at any time.

We have refreshed the COVID-19 Guidance for staff in vulnerable groups in line with the updated Qld Health Guide to Identifying and Supporting Vulnerable Employees (COVID-19).

COVIDSafe app

I’ve touched on this before but to reiterate, Metro North encourage staff to download the COVIDSafe Australian Government app to their personal devices and Queensland Health issues devices should you have one. The app should remain turned on at all times, including whilst you are at work in a Metro North facility.

Evaluation Framework for New and Changed Models of Care Through COVID-19

The rapid adoption of new and innovative models of care as we have responded to COVID-19 has been fantastic. As things have settled currently into a gentle phase of response, it is appropriate that we look back at what we have done and commence systematic review.

A consistent, evidence-based evaluation framework has been developed to inform whether each model should continue, continue with adaptations, or be abandoned.  This will ensure that we remain poised and ready with the best of models to deal with any surge of COVID-19 in the future.

The first iteration of this framework and suite of resources is now available.

For those of you staring down the barrel of a long weekend, enjoy some downtime, stay safe and adhere to the restrictions still in place. This weekend is particularly exciting for me… not only is it my first long weekend of the year, it’s my first full weekend off since late January!! I’m certainly looking forward to some downtime with my family. Alanna is back in the Incident Controller seat tomorrow – thanks Alanna and everyone who is working this weekend!

Kind regards,
Dr Liz Rushbrook
Metro North Health Incident Controller

Metro North HHS – Overview of Cases*

*With effect 1000 1 May 2020

**Metro North has three recorded deaths (one person a return traveller into NSW, who passed away in NSW)

*** These numbers reflect the cases being managed by Metro North