Tami Photinos, Executive Director

Tami Photinos and Dr Paul Lane

This week, I am proud to announce that TPCH has earned a position on Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospital 2023 list. This ranking identifies and honours the very best hospitals around the world, highlighting TPCH as being highly respected in the medical field and valued by its patients.

In receiving this recognition, TPCH was evaluated based on the criteria of: Hospital recommendations from peers, Patient Experience; Hospital Quality Metrics, and PROMS Implementation survey.

This accolade is testament to the world class services provided here at TPCH by a dedicated team of highly skilled and caring professionals. Congratulations everyone! This ranking was earned by you!

Executive Update

A reminder that TPCH’s Staff Influenza Vaccination Program has now commenced, and with winter on the way, I encourage staff to organise their vaccination as a priority.

Receiving my flu vaccination from Infection Control’s Clinical Nurse Consultant, Janice Geary

We all know that the cooler weather brings an increase in flu and respiratory cases, as well as staff sickness, so please act early to protect yourselves and others. With 32 percent of TPCH staff having received their flu vaccination to date, this leaves the majority of staff unprotected. I had my flu vaccination today, and it was a quick and easy process thanks to our dedicated Infection Control team. To get your vaccination, visit the Infection Control team on Level 3, Clinical Sciences Building, between 7am and 4pm, Monday to Friday. Clinical areas can schedule a mobile trolley by phoning 3139 4894.

Today is Administrative Professionals Day and this morning a number of the Executive team and I attended an event to recognise and celebrate the contributions of our administrative staff within the hospital. Here at TPCH, we have many administration staff and teams who support the delivery of high quality patient care across a variety of settings, working on the ground and behind the scenes to support our people. Thank you to all of our administrative staff for your great efforts and commitment. Keep up the excellent work!

Administrative Professionals Day celebrations

Earlier this week, I attended the Metro North Workforce Summit with other senior leaders from across the health service. The forum, organised by Metro North’s People and Culture team, focused on strategies for managing our workforce into the future, and aligning with Queensland Health’s broader workforce strategy. A very valuable session in helping inform a key priority area that will have a significant impact on the delivery of health services into the future.

FAST FACTS

This week is Privacy Awareness Week, so we will profile the Information Access Unit.

Did you know?:

• 

  Members of the Information Access Unit team
  l to r: Tami Eyles, Melinda Scott, Michelle Locke, Tina Clement

  The Information Access Unit is the main point of contact for enquiries to release of information, managing requests for information received from patients and third parties in accordance with the relevant legislation (Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011, Right to Information and Information Privacy Act 2009).

• The Unit consists of 5 full-time staff members, who provide services from 8am to 4pm Monday to Friday.
• Documents that are released under the Right to Information and Information Privacy Acts are subject to review rights with the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC).
• The Unit manages requests for medical records for patients, agents representing patients, Insurance companies, WorkCover, Health Professionals, the Coroner, Queensland Police Service and the Courts.
• Last year, the team’s Release of Information (ROI) office received 10,608 requests from GPs and other health care professionals.
• From May 2022, the Unit has received over 2,300 applications requesting information, 200 Coroners requests, 255 Subpoenas, 150 Queensland Police requests along with many others.
• The Unit has released 239,818 pages since May 2022.
• The Information Access Unit office is located on the lower ground floor between the kitchen and loading dock.
• Being Privacy Awareness Week, here’s a link to a short video What is Personal Information, highlighting the importance and value of personal information.

Staff Profile

Sarah Scott

Today we will profile Administration Manager, Quality and Data, Sarah Scott.

In this role, Sarah focuses on outpatients, process improvement and data quality, working closely with all areas to identify areas of improvement to support TPCH to meet Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and increase Weighted Activity Unit (WAU), to help meet outpatient activity targets.

Originally commencing her career in health as a nurse, Sarah moved into administration in her early thirties and has worked in several different roles within telehealth, business improvement as well as various project roles across Metro North.

Sarah loves data, and places great importance on the role that data integrity plays in patient safety. She enjoys implementing processes to support improved access to care for the community, a passion driven by her own personal experience of losing a child because of poor follow up. In all of her work, she remains a steadfast advocate for patient safety.

Outside of work, Sarah enjoys spending time with her three beautiful daughters, which involves a lot of weekends watching netball, and to her dismay, riding motorbikes! The family also enjoys going to the beach and camping.

Shout out

Our business managers and teams

Farewelling Damian Williams, l to r: Kevn Clark, Karlene Willcocks, Damian Williams, Tami Photinos, Sally Friedlander, Kate Jakeman

This week’s shout out goes to Damian Williams for his many years of excellent work in the area of wound management at TPCH. Damian, who is the Clinical Nurse Consultant for Wound Management, will leave TPCH after today to start a new role as Nurse Practitioner for RBWH’s Skin Integrity Service, taking with him over two decades of experience in wound management. During his time here, Damian has actively promoted best practice wound management, helped established TPCH’s Wound Bank, and has worked with the Nursing Research and Practice Development Unit as a primary or associate investigator on several research projects. He has also co-authored a number of recently published papers on various aspects of wound care. We thank Damian for his valuable support of TPCH patients and families, and wish him all the best in his new role.

Today’s other shout out goes to our Business Managers and their teams for their great work especially over the last month. These staff work tirelessly behind the scenes supporting all teams across TPCH to achieve the best possible outcomes for our patients in a financially responsible way. Well done!

Today’s quote

“I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.” – Paul Theroux

Tami.