After weeks of planning, the Deadly Feet program has been officially launched at Redcliffe Hospital. The program is a specialist outreach service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders people.

Deadly Feet provides culturally safe care closer to home for patients diagnosed with or at risk of foot conditions related to diabetes and/or peripheral vascular disease.

We’re grateful to Uncle Alan for his help in launching the program on Thursday morning in the Healing Garden, together with some of the clinic’s first patients.

Senior staff changes

There have been a couple of changes to our senior leadership team over the past couple of weeks.

We wish Sally Jones well in her new role with Queensland Health. Sally finished up at Redcliffe last Friday. Fiona Packwood will be the acting Nursing Director for the CCWC service line from the end of this month.

Grant Carey-Ide is in at Metro North for the next few weeks. While he’s away, Melanie Voigt will be leading our Safety and Quality team.

Recruitment for a new DMS continues, with Dr Joel Dulhunty and Dr Amber Winter filling in as Acting DMS for the next few weeks.

Staff Flu vaccinations

Our flu vaccination campaign starts next Monday with an all-day clinic in the old fever clinic shed. Just drop by anytime between 8am to 4pm with your Medicare card and a printed consent form.

You can also book a flu vaccination with the Pharmacy team.

Pop-up vaccination clinics start next Wednesday and there will also be a roving trolley moving through clinical areas.

Getting your flu vaccination is one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself, your family, and your patients. We do better work when we care for ourselves and each other.

Making it count

Our Health Information Service team has some more tips on how we can make our clinical work count. This week’s tip:

Are you counting TeleHandover?

TeleHandover is a video-conferenced team-to-team clinical handover for patients transferring between hospitals, healthcare facilities or services, are interdisciplinary and use a case conference format. Patients who are complex, non-critical and require rehab or ongoing care can benefit.

To find out more, talk to Health Information Services on 3883 7295.

Medical Leadership Intensive Program

Metro North has launched a new Medical Leadership Intensive Program, to enhance the leadership skills of senior medical staff across the organisation. The program provides comprehensive knowledge to help medical leaders navigate the challenges of the complex and changing environment within the healthcare environment and influence positive change. The program is initially available to Clinical Directors and Medical Directors within Metro North. It is delivered in three individual sessions over a 12-week period. Find out more.

Kind, safe and inclusive quality care every day

At our Staff Forum this week, Dr Joel Dulhunty talked about how Standard Six – Communicating for Safety contributes to kind, safe and inclusive quality care every day.

In practice, communicating for safety means good bedside handover, timely discharge summaries, listening to understand, and treating patients as team members in their care.

Next Monday, at 11am join Metro North’s Chief Executive, Jackie Hanson and our Chief Medical Officer Dr Liz Rushbrook for a Vidcast focussing on Standard Three – Preventing and controlling infections.

Click here to join the Vidcast from 11am next Monday.

Lastly this week, thanks to everyone who came along to our #IamRedcliffe Staff BBQ last week.  We’ll be running the next one on Monday, 12 June.

We say thank you to show our appreciation. #IamRedcliffe.

Louise.