Jane Hancock, Chief Operating Officer, Metro North Health

We are continuing to work on our recovery from COVID and winter demand. The numbers are coming down but there’s still a way to go until we get back to business as usual.

Executive Director Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service

Recently we completed a recruitment process for the. I am very pleased to let you know that Helen Boocock has been successfully appointed.

Helen has been acting in the ED STARS role for the past year and brings over 30 years’ experience in healthcare, with half of that in leadership roles. Helen’s clinical background is in dentistry and chronic pain management. Prior to coming to STARS, Helen had leadership roles with the Metro North Health/Brisbane North PHN Alliance and in Metro South Health.

Helen is passionate about value-based care and looks forward to working with the team at STARS and Metro North Health partners to continue to embed STARS, assist with current demands for care, and looks forward to STARS becoming a leader in specialist rehabilitation services and an efficient and effective elective surgery hub of excellence.

Teamwork

I am reminded everyday as I travel around the health service and meet with staff and patients, that consumers and their families need us to maintain our focus on outcomes that are important to them. This might seem obvious but sometimes gets lost. Patient care requires us to think and work effectively in teams. We cannot deliver patient care and the needs of our patients without working in a team and with others. The Chief Caregiver Officer as Cleveland Clinic states a healthcare organisation is a ‘team of teams’ focused on patient care delivery. There are some great examples of highly effective teams within our organisation. These teams are not only delivering patient care every day – people enjoy their interactions with these teams and people want to be part of them.

In the most effective teams, there is evidence of:

• good communication
• team members feeling valued, supported, acknowledged and respected
• role definition, expectation and accountability
• comfort but also challenge
• inclusivity, and
• joy.

Your call to action is VERY simple this week:

• Identify a team or a team member that is doing great work give them a shout out.

Before closing this message, I want to say a big thank you to all the teams across Metro North and to you as individual team members for the work that you do every day.

Thank you also for the positive difference that you make to each other and to our patients. Please try to find sometime for YOU amongst all the activity of your life over the next week and take care.

Warm regards,