I wanted to start this week’s message by saying a simple but very heartfelt thank you for continuing to deliver high-quality and patient-centred care to our patients and the community.

It’s day 34 for me and I continue to be impressed by how you live the Metro North Values and encouraging colleagues to do so as well. I’m also interested to hear more about your own personal values and how they are included in your workday.

If you have instances of CKW staff living the Metro North values, I would love to hear them via the ‘Ask Karlene’ link below. You should also consider nominating that person or team for a Staff Shoutout.

When we all work together and communicate with our patients and colleagues, we achieve greater success and achieve better outcomes.

Patient Care

Patient care and Community care are my passion and therefore patient flow continues to be a key topic of my weekly messages I will regularly explore models of care, strategies, interventions, processes and initiatives that can improve the patient journey.

To recap on some of the past key messages, I’ve asked you to focus on:

1. Actively moving the patient to the best place for them in the most efficient way to ensure their required treatment plan towards getting home is commenced asap
2. Ensuring the site you may transfer patients to has the facilities and capabilities to effectively manage the patient’s needs. Also that the handover is comprehensive and accurate.
3. Respecting and showing understanding each other as all service areas have patient demand pressures and are very busy
4. Doing everything we can to get a patient home when they no longer require hospital care
5. Scheduling and not cancelling outpatient appointments so hospital admission can be avoided or planned, rather than due to acute exacerbation
6. Prolonged stays on the QAS ‘ramp’ or in ED are risks to patients and shown to lead to extended stays in the hospital, supporting flow through ED is everyone’s responsibility as the patients in ED are ours not ED’s.
7. Ensuring all the above allows us to ensure we can manage our planned care and ensure our community can be admitted for their planned surgery, procedures or admissions.

Great patient care and caring for our Caboolture, Kilcoy and Woodford community is our role and therefore ensuring our patients are moved to the best therapeutic environment in the most efficient time is all our focus, this starts with acute patients through ED, to ensure as a system we can then provide elective services that our community need.

CKW Consumers meeting a highlight

This week, I had the pleasure of attending the Caring Together Consumer Network meeting and spoke with the attendees there Uncle Alan, Jurina, Lesley, Paul and Sandra about their experiences as patients, carers and as consumer representatives.

I was was particularly impressed to hear them speak about the contribution they have made over many years here at CKW and how much they value the work they do with us.

Uncle Alan shared about his involvement in the design of the new Clinical Services Building and how excited he is to see the artwork on the side of the building every time he comes to the hospital.

Jurina shared how an experience in our Emergency Department prompted her and the Consumer Network to develop the My Health Now document which is available for anyone to use so they always have their health information with them when they need it.  I am certainly pulling out this document to use for my family and I.

After eight years, this passionate and dedicated group keeps going from strength to strength. They are the voice of our community and I want to thank them for all they do in helping us be the best we can be for our community.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in becoming a consumer representative with us, or you’d like to better engage with your patients and their families, I encourage you to get in touch with our Manager of Consumer and Community Engagement, Parker Michaels, via ckw-engage@health.qld.gov.au.

Uncle Alan advised me he had been the recipient of the legendary Kilcoy scones, I have to say I was a bit jealous. He then made a great suggestion about hosting a consumer network meeting at Kilcoy Hospital soon, (including the scones made by the chef’s at Kilcoy).  What a great idea – let’s do it!

CKW Caring Together: Living our values charter

I would like to share some more of the sentiments conveyed by staff at the recent CKW Caring Together: Living Our Values Charter launch about what the values mean to them:

Paediatric Review

Caboolture Hospital is undertaking a review of its paediatric services. Metro North Health proactively established this independent, external review to explore the current patient journey for paediatric patients with the hope of improving the delivery of care for this ever-growing community.

The review is currently underway with the Paediatric Review Team set to be on site at Caboolture Hospital from Monday 19February to Wednesday 21 February.

The Paediatric Review Team will be meeting with a number of key people to better understand care delivery in the paediatric outpatient, inpatient and Emergency Department.

For some staff, this may be a difficult time and I encourage you to reach out to a CKW Peer Responder or Telus Health (previously Benestar) for assistance.

Policy, Procedure and Protocol Staff Update

The monthly CKW Policy, Procedure and Protocol (PPP) Staff Update for January 2024 is now available on the intranet page.

I encourage you to log-on to look over the new, updated and rescinded documents which ensures you’re up-to-date.

Leadership role updates:

Clinical Director, Medicine and Older Persons (MOPS) Service Line – Congratulations Emma

I am pleased to announce that Dr Emma Donaldson, an accomplished General Physician (across both UK and Australia) with an impressive background in clinical leadership, governance and patient-focused care, will be temporarily backfilling the role of Clinical Director, Medicine and Older Persons (MOPS) Service Line.

Dr Donaldson will be in the role until early May while a permanent recruitment process is finalised.

Nurse Unit Manager – Transit Lounge – Congratulations Jess

Jessica Linnan has been permanently appointed to the Transit Lounge Nurse Unit Manager role. Jess has been acting in this role and admirably lead the team for the past two years, Jess is well known across the CKW Clinical Directorate often acting in the Nursing Director, Patient Flow role. This is great news for the team here at CKW as she brings a calm, solution focused nature to our leadership team.  It’s great to have Jess permanently appointed.

Assistant Nursing Director, Caboolture Hospital Emergency, Kilcoy Hospital, Woodford Corrections Health – Congratulations Paul

Paul Kemp has been temporarily appointed to the Assistant Nursing Director for the Caboolture Hospital Emergency, Kilcoy Hospital, Woodford Corrections Health and the Caboolture and Bribie Island Satellite Hospital Minor Injury and Illness Clinics.  Paul works with Tracey McTigue in the Service Line and is focused on providing support at Kilcoy, WCC, Caboolture SH, while working on the Bribie Island SH and the new Youth Detention Health Service.

We are seeking to establish the Assistant Nursing Director position on a permanent basis with a formal recruitment process to follow.

Recruitment:

We are still in the process of recruiting the Director of Medical Services which I will keep you updated on as we progress.

Permanent recruitment for the Clinical Director MOPS and Clinical Director Emergency, Kilcoy and Woodford are both currently advertised.

Visits

This week I have had the joy of visiting theatre and going behind the scenes, as we walked through and had a look at our state- of-the-art facilities that are truly fantastic.

Jeff Anderson and I reminisced about pushing diathermy machines around and manoeuvring scope towers, that were not only heavy but awkward… Jeff lamented damaging the precious scope screen as it popped up at an inopportune time… technology has certainly changed and I look forward to my next visit, where we will take some photos so people can see the area and amazing team there.

I also had the opportunity to meet with the Allied Health leaders and discuss their ideas, opportunities and challenges – how lucky are we to have such a forward-thinking group of leaders in our Allied Health team.

But more amazing was that as I re-entered the building from the playground where I really wanted to use the slide… I was confronted with a much larger segment of the Allied Health team who were busy planning their day, having breaks and discussing patient care.

It was such an energy filled space and obvious there is a great team supporting the patients in the AH team.

Last night I also popped in to the true core of the hospital and meet the Kitchen Services team as they prepared dinner for our patients, it is a hub of activity and our team were so busy and yet they were happy to tell me about their roles and the years of service and changes they have seen… it made me think we really need to show case some of our team members they have amazing stories and drivers for being here.

Research success

I was thrilled to hear that CKW has received funding for an innovative research project. Can’t say too much at present. More to come in a few weeks!

Reflection

As I reflect on yet another week, I also reflect on those of you I have not yet connected with and how excited I am to get out and about and meet you all. Please do say hello to me if you see me – I truly love a yarn and love to hear the great things you are all doing and the challenges you face, so we can work together on solutions where possible.

I also want to extend a special thank you to everyone working across the weekend, I spent much of my career working nights and weekends and I am so grateful to those of you that keep our patients safe in these after-hours periods.

National Apology Day

National Apology Day is on Tuesday (13 February). This year marks 16 years since then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people – particularly addressed to members of the Stolen Generation whose lives were affected by past government policies that forced child removals and assimilation.

On Tuesday, Caboolture Hospital will host a National Apology Day event in the Education and Skills Centre Lecture Theatre.

The ceremony will be held 10am to 10.30am, followed by morning tea and yarning from 10.30am to 12pm. Light refreshments will be provided.

For more details, phone Cultural Capability Officer Janita on 5316 5348.

As part of our commitment to Health Equity and Reconciliation, it’s important that we continue to acknowledge, commemorate and better understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s rich history, culture and current health needs.

Please as we enter this week of reflection and learning take some time to reflect on how you can better understand and support our future.

“If you want to fly, Give up everything that weighs you down” Buddha