We had the encouraging news this week that Metro North Health has now stood down to Tier 1 in our Acute Respiratory Illness Response Plan.

The change means we have returned to face-to-face meetings. However, nothing has changed about our continued attention to hand hygiene and infection prevention practices.

All hospital staff continue to be encouraged to wear masks in clinical areas, in line with the PPE guidelines, and we continue to make masks and hand sanitiser available at all entrances for staff, patients, and visitors.

As always, if you are unwell, please stay home.

If there’s anything you don’t understand about being on Tier 1, please talk to your line manager.

Staff Excellence Awards – Nominations close tonight

Nominations close tonight for this year’s Redcliffe Hospital Staff Excellence Awards – this is your last chance to submit a nomination.

We’ve received nominations across all eight award categories – with many strong nominations in the People Focus category.

It’s always great to see the list of people nominated and all the ways that staff and teams contribute to making Redcliffe Hospital a truly great place to work.

The awards will be presented on Monday, 28 August, thanks to our sponsor, QSuper.

EOI to join Health Equity People & Culture Advisory Group

As part of our commitment to Health Equity and the principles of co-design, Metro North Health is calling for expressions of interest from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff and allies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to join an Advisory Group to assist in the development of workforce-related actions under the Health Equity Strategy for 2023-2025.

Find out more about this opportunity, or, apply online.

July #IamRedcliffe Team of the Month

We announced our #IamRedcliffe Team of the Month as this week’s staff forum – Congratulations again to our winner for July, Monique Raven.

Monique was recognised for her commitment to NDIS patients, for bringing her A-Game, and for her collaborative work with community service providers in the interest of patient outcomes.

Well done to this month’s six other nominees, including Josh Foyle, the Child Protection Unit, Mark Mealing and Aaron Ward, Tim Backhouse, the Emergency Department admin team, and the hospital’s paediatric ward.

Nominations for the August Team of the Month close on Tuesday, 15 August.

Hand hygiene bed brackets

As part of our ongoing commitment to hand hygiene, every bed in Redcliffe Hospital will soon be fitted with new brackets, allowing staff immediate and easy access to Angel Care Hand Gel.

These new brackets are vital patient safety equipment and must not be removed.

The brackets and ready access to hand gel make it even easier for everyone to observe the five moments for hand hygiene.

ieMR project launch

ieMR will be going live at Redcliffe Hospital on 15 May 2024. We officially launched the Redcliffe Hospital ieMR project this week with the help of our Digital Metro North colleagues.

More than 200 people joined that launch event to hear more about how ieMR will help our patients and what the pathway to ieMR will look like at Redcliffe.

For those unable to join, a presentation slide pack is available.

As part of the launch, there was a video featuring Redcliffe Hospital staff from across the hospital discussing why they’re excited about the ieMR coming to Redcliffe. If you haven’t seen it yet, it can be viewed online.

Now that the project has been launched, from next week, we can expect to see staff from the ieMR Program visiting hospital areas to collect information about workflows in different clinical areas.

This information will inform the ‘workflow review’ and ‘future state validation’ bodies of work outlined in the project timeline.

If you have any questions, please email the ieMR Program team at ieMRProject-MetroNorth@health.qld.gov.au.

Next week

With the Ekka public holiday on Monday for Moreton Bay, thank you to everyone working over the long weekend caring for patients.

Next Tuesday, we have our next #IamRedcliffe Staff Lunch to look forward to, with delicious soups on offer from 11am in the Staff Courtyard.

Our user groups for the Redcliffe Hospital Expansion start meeting next week. Thank you again to everyone who nominated to join those, and to our consumers who will be helping inform the schematic design of our new clinical services building.

I’ll be on leave from Wednesday night, and while I’m away, Geoff Grima will be acting as Executive Director. David Thompson from Caboolture will backfill Geoff’s role as Allied Health Director while I’m away.

See you all when I’m back from Ireland!

Louise.