Adj. Prof. Jackie Hanson, Chief Executive

Jim McGowan AM, Board Chair

This is our last message of the year and we wanted to thank you for your work and commitment. It’s been a challenge at times as we’ve dealt with high COVID numbers, including among Metro North’s own, and we’ve also has some amazing achievements. Join us for a vidcast at 10.30am to reflect on the year that was 2022.

This year we have seen leaps in medicine from our research community, such as the first 3D breast scaffold surgery, innovative models of care such as our Virtual Ward and Virtual ED, launched our Health Equity Strategy, secured funding for new infrastructure and services, celebrated a wide range of team and individual staff achievements at our Staff and Research Excellence Awards and safety and quality awards, and delivered more than 4 million occasions of interventions. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed and are very appreciated. If you haven’t seen the thank you video yet, you can watch it here.

We have also started updating our Values in Action with additional information to reflect our journey towards health equity.

The first update is to produce postcards which outline how we can uphold our commitment to racial equity through respect. Additional postcards will be created next year as handy tools to ensure we are demonstrating our commitment to health and racial equity every day.

Looking forward to the new year we will see significant milestones across Metro North with the new clinical services building and our first satellite hospital opening at Caboolture, and the Kallangur satellite hospital toward the end of the year. There will be plenty of opportunities in the reform and innovation space, so now is the time to be having those conversations in your teams.

Congratulations to Community and Oral Health and the teams at Cooinda and Gannet House who achieved high scores in aged care accreditation. Gannet House is one of the few RACFs in the country, one of only five in Queensland and the only Queensland public RACF to achieve a 5-star rating.

We’d like to share some great patient feedback we received at our TPCH Clinical Directorate Performance meeting specifically for our emergency department staff who are reading.
We recognise that this time of year can be difficult for many people. Please talk to a friend or colleague or reach out to one of our staff wellbeing services such as the Staff Psychologists or a peer responder. We also have a range of financial wellbeing resources on the extranet.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it and for everyone taking a break over the festive season we wish you quality time with family and friends and lots of relaxation and fun. For those working through the festive season, thank you. Happy new year!

Here’s hoping we’ve all made Santa’s Nice list this year!

Kind regards,

Jim McGowan AM, Board Chair

Adj. Assoc. Prof. Jackie Hanson, Chief Executive