Message from the Executive Director

Last night, Metro North held its annual Research Excellence Awards event and I am pleased to share that a number of researchers from TPCH were recognised for their work. Congratulations to the following winners:

• Prof John Fraser, Critical Care Research Group – Researcher of the Year
• Dr Mahesh Ramanan, ICU – Winner, Research Support 
• Lung cancer screening – Australia’s 4th national screening program – Winner, Research Implementation 
• The Living Heart Project, CCRG – Highly Commended, Clinical Research

We commend our winners, but also acknowledge the many other dedicated researchers at TPCH who invest many hours of their time to achieve new discoveries and methods that will contribute to improved health outcomes for our patients. Well done everyone!

Transplant service update

Some staff may have seen this week’s media coverage in relation to our transplant programs at TPCH. TPCH’s heart transplant program and the lung transplant retrieval service were temporarily paused over the weekend after the hospital detected some possible contamination in the environment where we store equipment to retrieve donor hearts and lungs. This was done out of an abundance of caution to protect our transplant patients, one of our most vulnerable patient groups, and enable the hospital to assess the situation and replace equipment.

Currently TPCH has four heart transplant patients with fungal infections. Another patient with a fungal infection and other conditions recently passed away and the cause of death is being reviewed.

All patients on the heart and lung transplant waiting lists as well as transplant recipients were contacted by our transplant team about the temporary pause. The lung transplant retrieval service recommenced on Monday this week, and the heart transplant service recommenced yesterday morning. No surgeries were cancelled or rescheduled during this period. Both transplant services are fully functional with appropriate precautions in place to ensure the wellbeing of our transplant patients.

I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the staff and teams who undertook extra work this week to ensure TPCH can continue to provide a safe high quality transplant service to the people of Queensland.

Accreditation

Metro North Mental Health received notification that they will undergo short-notice accreditation next week, so we wish them all the best with their assessment. TPCH is set to undergo our accreditation in the next couple of weeks, so a couple of general reminders in the lead up:

• Ensure patients are included in ward rounds and handovers where appropriate and safe
  to do so
• Make sure that all areas are free of clutter and clinical storage rooms are tidy and clean.

Executive update

Changes to Executive team

Today we farewell Karen Leighton, Director of Operations, Heart and Lung who after 35 years of service to Queensland Health, will take on a new leadership role in the private health care sector.

During her past nine years at TPCH, Karen has fulfilled a number of senior and executive roles including Manager Human Resources, Director Corporate Services and most recently, Director of Operations, Heart and Lung. Some of Karen’s key achievements across these roles include the development of a middle managers training program, restructure of administration services, and upgrade of hospital facilities including the staff dining area, and Endoscopy and Cardiac Investigations Unit reception areas. In her current role, Karen has worked closely with the Heart Lung team to achieve record activity, contributing to the Cardiology Service’s recent ranking as Newsweek’s 35th best specialised hospital in the world for Cardiology in 2023.

Karen is well known and respected across the organisation for her logical and strategic decision making, integrity, fairness, and genuine care and compassion for the people of TPCH. Her honest and personable approach to others has made her a highly regarded and trusted member of TPCH community. We sincerely thank Karen for her loyalty, dedication and leadership and wish her the very best with her new endeavour.

Walkaround

This week, I visited our Adult Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Centre to meet with members of the team and Chief Executive Officer Cystic Fibrosis Australia, Jo Armstong who made a special visit to the Centre. The Adult CF Unit is Queensland’s hub for specialist care for adults with cystic fibrosis, caring for about 300 patients from Queensland, northern New South Wales and the Northern Territory. During the visit, I had the pleasure to meet patient Bronwyn who was preparing to go home after a two-week admission. Bronwyn told me she is very happy with the care she receives from the CF team, and was looking forward to sitting on her front veranda with a cup of tea and her herb garden!  We wish you all the best Bronwyn.

Some of you may have noticed I have not been around the hospital for the last couple of weeks. While I unfortunately missed our wonderful TPCH Week celebrations, I had to take some unexpected leave for family reasons. I’m back in the office now and look forward to speaking with many of you when I’m out and about the hospital again in the coming weeks.

Occupational violence prevention forum

As part of our commitment to improving safety in our facilities for staff, Metro North are seeking staff members from all areas to attend the Metro North Occupational Violence Prevention Forum next Thursday 9 November, 12 – 4 pm, Eatons Hill Hotel. The forum will aim to kick start a renewed approach to occupational violence prevention across our health service, gain a deeper understanding of how we can better support our staff, showcase the existing resources available, and workshop new ideas to prevent occupational violence in the future. If you, or one of your team members is interested in attending, please complete the nomination form.

FAST FACTS

This week, we’ll profile our Medical Records team.

Did you know?

• Medical records is a 24/7 service that moves approximately 30,000 charts every month throughout the hospital to support patient care.
• The team consists of 28 full-time staff who support clinics, research, release of information, coding and as of next month, scanning support for the soon-to-open, Kallangur Satellite Hospital.
• Team runners walk between 20,000-25,000 steps each day.
• Medical records is responsible for a total of 863,403 patient records.
• The department processes over 11,000 urgent chart requests every month.

Staff Profile

Because last week was Occupational Therapy Week, we will profile Senior Occupational Therapist and Accredited Hand Therapist, Kylie Bebel.

Kylie is responsible for leading the Hands Rapid Access Service. Through this service, patients who present to emergency with a hand injury are fast tracked to hand therapy to optimise flow, reduce length of stay in the emergency department (ED) and divert referrals from the fracture clinic.

Having delivered hand and upper limb services in public and private settings in Australia and London before commencing at TPCH eleven years ago, Kylie enjoys tailoring treatment to each individual patient to maximise their function and reduce the impact on their day-to-day life. She understands that a hand injury impacts every aspect of one’s life including self-care, work/income, caring for a dependent, exercise, leisure and mental health.

In her spare time, Kylie loves bush walking and camping. She just completed the 48 kilometre 3 Capes Walk in Tasmania.

Charlies Research Spotlight

Welcome back to Charlies Research Spotlight. It’s been a busy but productive time since our last update.

Firstly, the Charlie’s Week Hour of Power returned with full force with a total of 33 abstracts/presentations entered by TPCH researchers, with the final 12 presenting ‘live’ to a standing room only audience in the Dr Mark O’Brien Auditorium on the day. It was fantastic to see the heats held on Teams were also well attended, and we hope that all abstracts will be presented ‘live’ next year. This year’s judges commented on the overall high quality of the presentations as well as the breadth and depth of the current research being performed at the hospital. Thanks again to our special guests and judges – Dr Richard Slaughter, Dr Paul Zimmerman, Mr B Walters, Mrs Lara Lowndes and TPCH Foundation for sponsoring and coordinating the event.

Congratulations to our winners:

• Margaret Passmore – The Michael Ray Award for the Best Basic Science/Translational Presentation
• Jim Crowhurst – The Richard Slaughter Award for the Best Clinical Presentation
• Thomas Georgeson – The Paul Zimmerman Award for the Best New Investigator
• Keibun Liu – People’s Choice Award

Research was also highlighted at TPCH Staff Excellence Awards.

Congratulations to the following winners:

• Dr Manju Chandrasegaram, General Surgery – Research Support
• Dr Michael Savage, Cardiology – Winner, Rising Star of Research
• Hollie Bendotti, Thoracic Medicine – Highly Commended, Rising Star of Research
• Prof John Fraser, Critical Care Research Group – Research Partnership 
• Assoc Prof Peter Lazzarini, Allied Health Research Collaborative – Researcher of the Year

The publication of the month also deserves a special mention and recognition.

Congratulations to Prof Ross Crawford and the Orthopaedic Department with a publication in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) last month as co-authors. The NEJM is one of the most respected medical journals in the world with a current impact factor of 176. The paper determined the addition of vancomycin to cefazolin prophylaxis was not superior to placebo for the prevention of surgical-site infections in arthroplasty among patients without known MRSA colonization. (Funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council; Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry number, ACTRN12618000642280.) The paper can be found at: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2301401.

Shout out

This week’s shout out goes to dietitian and Principal Research Fellow, Jack Bell who recently delivered multiple presentations at the Fragility Fracture Global Congress in Norway in relation to his research around malnutrition in hip fracture care. Jack received amazing feedback from participants representing more 50 countries, on his plenary chairing efforts and contagious passion and enthusiasm. While there, Jack was also awarded title of Adjunct Professor at the University of Iceland. Well done Jack!

Today’s quote

“You have two hands: One to help yourself, the second to help others.” – Audrey Hepburn

Tami.