Louise Oriti

We had some exciting news this week, with three Redcliffe Hospital finalists announced in this year’s Metro North Staff Excellence Awards. The finalists were announced on Tuesday by the Metro North Board Chair, Jim McGowan and Chief Executive Jackie Hanson.

Congratulations and good luck to:

• Samantha Cullen, a finalist in the Excellence in Performance category
• Dr Hamish Pollock and ICU intensivists, finalists in the Leadership category, and
• Redcliffe Hospital’s security team, finalists in the Excellence in Integrated Care category.

There were around 170 nominations across nine categories for this year’s awards, which will be presented at the Gala Dinner on Friday, 9 December, at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. Tickets are still available.

These awards are proudly sponsored by QSuper, RemServ and QBANK.

ICU this Saturday

Redcliffe Hospital has moved to a Code Yellow this afternoon ahead of some planned works in the ICU tomorrow. To allow the works to be carried out safely, we’ll be using the DPU as our temporary ICU on Saturday.

Even though these are only minor works, lots of planning has gone into making sure they can be done quickly and with as little disruption as possible. There will be no changes to MET calls, and the ICU will continue to accept internal referrals. Additional operational and cleaning staff will be available to help ensure that patients will be back in the ICU as quickly as possible after the works are completed.

Thank you to everyone involved in these arrangements, including our BEMS, facility services, operational and ICU teams.

Black test

Thank you to everyone involved in last weekend’s ‘black test’ of the hospital’s electrical system. Thanks in particular to the teams from engineering, facility services, the hospital coordinator, and Keith Von Dohren as our on-call nursing director. The test went well and showed once again that we can have confidence in the resilience of our hospital’s electrical system. That system has come a long way over the past few years – with major upgrades providing us with a modern and resilient system as we approach our hospital expansion.

Nutrition November

Throughout November, the Nutrition and Hydration Working Group have been building awareness around the risks and impact of malnutrition on patient safety with their Nutrition November initiative.

The key message of Nutrition November is that patient nutrition matters in reducing the risk of pressure injuries, infections, falls, and other complications. The team have also been talking a lot about the importance of the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) in referring at-risk patients to the hospital’s dieticians.

Earlier this week, together with Sally Taranec and Geoff Grima, I judged the Nutrition November poster competition, awarding 5 East and 5 West as joint winners. Both entries focused on their patient cohorts’ nutrition needs and challenges. There was strong support from the nursing teams too.

Nutrition November has also engaged directly with hospital inpatients, with specially designed meal placemats encouraging feedback on the quality and taste of hospital meals.

As a fun way to end Nutrition November, next Wednesday, there will be a range of food trucks in the North Block car park between 11am and 2pm. Those details should be in your Outlook calendar.

A lot of work has gone into organising this initiative, and it’s a credit to the Nutrition and Hydration Working Group for putting these events together.

Psychology Week

Psychology Week starts next Monday, and it’s a good opportunity to acknowledge our Psychology Department as a growing and dynamic team. Over the past year, the team have provided around 1,400 outpatient appointments, and work continues to develop an inpatient service as well. Thank you to Saskia Hennes and the team for the care they’ve provided patients over the past year.

On a personal note from me

I’m sure I’m not alone in recognising how hard things are right now for many in our local community. If you can, please be generous in supporting our St Vincent de Paul Christmas Appeal. I’ve seen first-hand the impact that our donations make to families in our community. I’ve also had staff members tell me how they remember, as children, receiving hampers like these from organisations like St Vinnies and the difference it made to their Christmas.

We go out of our way to help others. #IamRedcliffe.

Louise Oriti
Executive Director
Redcliffe Hospital