Executive Director Clinical Governance, Safety, Quality and Risk: Michele Gardner

I would like to start by expressing my sincere thanks for the work you are all doing as we navigate our way through the current Tier 3 response. Whilst this has been a particularly difficult time for our Health Service, we have continued to see some really positive safety and quality outcomes still occur. 

Our colleagues at STARS underwent their first organisational wide ACHS accreditation visit. This visit saw STARS assessed against the eight National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards over four days. I am so very pleased to say that STARS met all the criteria of the standards and have received no recommendations. This is a huge triumph for a facility that has only been operational for twelve months. Congratulations to STARS for this wonderful accreditation achievement. STARS is the last Metro North facility to undertake an organisational wide accreditation visit as Metro North moves toward a Short Notice Accreditation Program (SNAP) in January 2023. I will be providing more information on Short Notice Accreditation over the coming months and look forward to working with you all to ensure our Health Service is accreditation ready every day. 

While I am on the topic of ACHS, the 25th Annual ACHS Quality Improvement (QI) Awards are now open! These awards acknowledge healthcare organisations that achieve excellence and innovation in clinical care, organisation-wide practice, service delivery and performance measurement. The QI Awards provide an opportunity to share patient-focused innovation and communicate their quality improvement achievements to the healthcare industry. I am eager to support anyone who would like to make a submission for this year’s awards. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the Metro North Clinical Governance, Safety, Quality and Risk team should you require any assistance. There have been so many safety and quality achievements across Metro North and it would be great to see these recognised nationally. 

Further information on how to enter these awards can be found on the ACHS website. Submissions close Friday, 9 September 2022 at 5pm (AEDT). 

In other exciting news, I am delighted to advise we have launched our yearly Quality of Care Snapshot 2020-21 – Metro North Health which is now live. This snapshot focuses on the past 12 months in safety and quality and identifies the key achievements, trends and great work being done across Metro North in a variety of areas to ensure we strive to deliver high quality care to our patients and community. I would like to acknowledge the directorate and clinical stream contributions to this snapshot, as well as the Metro North Clinical Governance, Safety, Quality and Risk teams and the Metro North Communications team to pull this together. I encourage you all to look at this snapshot and reflect on the importance of safety and quality to our consumers, staff and the communities we serve. 

As many of you may be aware, on 1 January 2022, Metro North became the official health partner of the Norfolk Island Hospital and Residential Aged Care Service. I am delighted to be the Executive Lead for this partnership and a dedicated support team has been established, led by Karen Ryan, Acting Director Norfolk Island Transition Support Team, as we transition into this new and exciting relationship. This team is the central point of coordination and contact with the staff on Norfolk Island. The team are working on developing a dedicated Metro North intranet page so please keep an eye out for this. If any staff have any questions regarding Norfolk Island, I encourage you to reach out to the Metro North Norfolk Island Transition Support team via NISupport@health.qld.gov.au 

Thank you once again for continuing to step up for safety and quality across Metro North to ensure our patients, and their families, receive the highest quality of care whilst receiving care across our great Health Service. 

Take care, stay safe and if you have any feedback, thoughts or great initiatives regarding quality and safety across Metro North, please do not hesitate to reach out. 

Kind Regards, 

Michele