Message from the Acting Executive Director

What a big week it has been for TPCH!

It was fitting that the week began with World Kindness Day on Monday 13 November, a global day of recognition that serves as a reminder of the positive impact that kindness can have on others. It encourages people to perform intentional acts of kindness and foster a culture of compassion and generosity.

At TPCH, we perform acts of kindness day through our commitment to providing patients with a high-quality and compassionate care experience, as well as supporting and caring for our fellow colleagues. Creating a compassionate and collegial work environment becomes particularly important when we are challenged like we have been at TPCH this week.

Accreditation

This week, TPCH underwent a week-long accreditation which reviewed the performance of our hospital and services against the National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards.

We welcomed a team of nine assessors to the hospital, who have been respectful and helpful guests to our facility, showing wonderful insights and compassion to all our staff.

A sincere thanks to all the staff at TPCH who have supported the accreditation process. The assessment team appreciated how engaged staff were with the review and their generosity of time.

The ACHS team will provide a summary of their week at 2.30-3.00 pm this afternoon. The team will outline how TPCH meets and in some cases exceeds the National Standards, as well as provide suggestions to further improve our services.

Staff are invited to attend the feedback session in person at the Dr Mark O’Brien Auditorium, Education Centre, or via Teams.

Heart transplant services

By now many staff would have seen the recent media and parliamentary coverage about fungal infections that is impacting the heart transplant program.

We acknowledge this situation may be causing staff some concern, and we know that a number of staff have been approached by patients and visitors about whether the hospital is safe. If you are approached by a patient or visitor who has concerns, please reassure them the hospital is safe to come to.  It is also important to emphasise the heart transplant and lung transplant programs are fully operational.

We are undertaking extra precautions to keep our transplant patients and other immuno-compromised patients safe when visiting the hospital. We have a specialist team consisting of transplant and infectious diseases staff working to ensure that any potential source of fungal infection is identified and removed.

As you are aware there are significant building works occurring at the hospital in preparation for a new multi-storey car park. This has resulted in additional dust levels and the increased potential to stir up various organisms in the soil. The hospital is aware of the association between building works and fungal infections in transplant patients. As a precaution, we ask that all patients with a compromised immune system wear a P2/N95 mask when attending the hospital, clinics, procedures, collection of medications, and/or the gym, if they are comfortable to do so. These masks will provide greater levels of protection.

The Metro North Executive and The Prince Charles Hospital Executive teams acknowledge the immense amount of work that is happening behind the scenes by our clinical and operational teams to manage this issue. It is a very challenging period, especially for our heart transplant patients, supporters and staff. We are working closely with the team to ensure it can continue to provide the world class care it has been delivering for the last 23 years.

I thank everyone for their efforts and support as we continue to work through this issue.

FAST FACTS

This week is Perioperative Nurses Week so we will profile our Perioperative Nursing team.

Did you know?

• The perioperative nursing staff support and provide specialised care for patients through their surgical journey during the immediate pre, intra and post-operative phases of their care.
• In 2022-23, over 9,200 patients underwent elective and emergency surgery in the 12 operating theatres at TPCH.
• There are over 120 nursing staff working across Theatre and Post Acute Care Unit (PACU) to provide a 24/7 service to patients.
• Theatres employ up to seven graduate registered nurses each year to train them in perioperative nursing through a transition to practice program that rotates graduates through various areas of the service including Central Sterilising Department and Recovery.
• Theatre and PACU nursing staff participate in an on-call roster after hours with 10 nurses rostered on call each night of the week for surgical specialities including transplant retrieval.
• Perioperative nursing staff are active members of a unique multidisciplinary team including surgeons, anaesthetists, anaesthetic technicians, radiographers and administration staff.

Staff Profile

Today we will profile Social Work Clinical Lead, Subacute Service, Internal Medicine Service, Mia Waugh.

Mia works with TPCH’s Memory Clinic team, which focuses on addressing psychosocial factors that support patients to continue living independently at home and avoid hospital admission. As part of the Social Work’s Sub Acute team which covers CAM, RAS and GEM, Mia supports the team to manage many interesting and complex patient cases, and navigate some very complex NDIS and RACF pathway patients.

Mia enjoys being part of a fabulous specialist team dedicated to patient care. She values the privilege to support and connect with vulnerable patients through listening and empathy, and is passionate about improving health equity and helping empower patients to determine their own paths.

In her spare time, Mia is an avid op shopper, although since having her two-year old daughter Edith, her capacity to safely secure retro glassware and records has been somewhat limited.

ESM update

From next Monday 20 November 2023, the TPCH Enterprise Scheduling Management (ESM) Go-Live and HyperCare Support functions will transition to business-as-usual (BAU) processes and teams.

Staff training and provisioning to ESM will be managed by the TPCH Health Informatics team. Contact: TPCH-SystemsAdmin@health.qld.gov.au for further information.

For support during the week, please contact the TPCH Health Informatics team via email at: TPCH-SystemsAdmin@health.qld.gov.au or for support after-hours, log a job online with IT Support or call 1800 198 175. You can prioritise your IT Support call for matters impacting clinical care or services by pressing #1.

If necessary, you can escalate a Digital Clinical Incident to Digital Metro North (DMN) Clinical Informatics on-call via the RBWH Switch on 07 3646 8111.

A big thank-you to all TPCH staff for your collaboration, positivity and proactiveness in enabling a successful ESM go-live.

Today’s quote

“No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team.” – Reid Hoffman

Melanie.