Adj. Prof. Alanna Geary, Acting Executive Director

Thank you to everyone who joined the special short-notice accreditation CKW All Staff Forum earlier today. As I said to everyone at that event, accreditation is nothing to be worried about. It’s BAU.

If an assessor comes to your ward or work area, please don’t be afraid. Continue with what you would normally do. This is our opportunity to demonstrate the great work we do at CKW every day.

This includes opening the new Caboolture Hospital Emergency Department on Wednesday. Let’s showcase the Command Centre overseeing the moves and everyone who continues to work on establishing services in the new building.

The Australian Council of Health Care Standards (ACHS) accreditors will arrive at Caboolture Hospital at 8am tomorrow morning. Their first port of call will be a meeting with the Metro North Acting Director Safety and Quality Grant Carey-Ide and myself. Then we will collectively meet with the broader CKW executive team to provide an overview of the directorate and our recent safety and quality improvements.

The assessors will then start visiting clinical areas across the facility over the next four days. This will include a visit to Kilcoy and Woodford on Wednesday. They may also visit external clinical facilities, such as our Allied Health colleagues at the Caboolture Super Clinic in Bertha Street and those that are housed at Riverside.

On Friday, the assessors will present their findings formally to CKW and Metro North executives. We will host a staff summation event on Friday afternoon – basically another All Staff Forum – in the Lecture Theatre to go through the findings in detail with everyone.

At the end of the process, the assessors may well give us any recommendations to finalise. Other Metro North facilities that have already been through short-notice accreditation – such as TPCH and Mental Health – and they are busy working through the recommendations they received. I would think that CKW will do very similarly.

Please be aware of the largest clinical risks in your area and what we’re doing about it. Think about issues identified and what we’ve done to deal with it. Accreditation is about improvement and CKW has done so much in this space over the past few months.

For more details, contact the CKW Safety and Quality team. We’ve got this so let’s enjoy the week with our peers and continue the wonderful journey we have been on together.

Check for isolation signs in clinical services building

Wards in the new Caboolture Hospital clinical services building have isolation signs on the walls in the corridors. They are not on the door to the room. Signage is displayed above the patient room number.

Please ensure you always check for isolation signage and have the appropriate PPE prior to entering a patient room.

Isolation sign examples are to the right.

Final chance to secure tickets to Metro North Staff Excellence Awards!

Don’t miss your chance to attend the Metro North Staff Excellence Awards.

The event will once again be held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Friday 15 December and tickets are selling quickly!

More information and to reserve your tickets.

I have just today paid for my ticket and am looking forward to a fun and festive evening to celebrate all things Metro North.

The finalists have now been announced so remember if you are a finalist, or in a team of finalists, your admission is only $50.

For the rest of us it is $75 but I can’t wait to celebrate with all of you on the night. It is always fun!

Have a great week, Team CKW. Remember, we are awesome!

Enjoy this week as we move the Emergency Department into the new CSB, host the ACHS team and remember to stay safe.

Alanna.