Adj Assoc Prof Jackie Hanson, Chief Executive, MN Health

As you know, Metro North will open three new satellite hospitals at Caboolture, Kallangur and Bribie Island. On Wednesday a small number of us visited the Caboolture Satellite Hospital site (pictured with Russell Suereth from Hutchison and Bill Lewis from Dept Energy & Public Works). It is really exciting to see this critical infrastructure developing. This along with the Caboolture Clinical Services building means a substantial uplift in capacity for the Caboolture area and new and innovative ways of working.

While on Caboolture, the Brisbane North PHN Chief Executive Libby Dunston and I presented the early evaluation of the Caboolture Care Collaborative which is a joint initiative funded by Queensland Health and the Commonwealth Department of Health. There are over 70 patients recruited all of whom have had many attendances to the emergency department historically. Since the program commenced there has been an 83 per cent reduction in ED attendance and 56 per cent have had zero or one presentation. This is a fantastic result so far and I will keep you updated on the progress.

Yesterday I held a health equity vidcast with our Executive Director Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Sherry Holzapfel. Our health equity work is progressing. If you haven’t familiarised yourself with the Health Equity Strategy implementation plan, it moves very fast so you really need to look at it regularly to stay up to date. Last Friday we held another community yarning session with entertainment from Uncle Roger Knox (pictured with Sherry).

We will also be holding a health equity showcase at Brighton Health Campus on Wednesday 7 December. It will feature presentations from directorates on what’s happening in the health equity space. If you would like more information, contact the Health Equity team.

We have held another Courageous Conversations about Race workshop this week. Our whole Metro North executive team has completed the workshop last year. It’s brilliant and deep and powerful. The course can take 80 people and I highly recommend that whole teams go through the workshop. The next one will be 19 and 20 January.

This week we announced the finalists for the Metro North Staff Excellence Awards. The award recipients will be recognised at the awards gala dinner on Friday 9 December. This event is open to any staff from Metro North, so if you’re interested, buy your tickets now before they sell out.

Have a great weekend.

Kind regards,

Jackie