Tami Photinos, Executive Director

With tomorrow being a public holiday, I would like to reflect on a particular aspect of the excellent health care system we have access to living in our wonderful country of Australia.

This week, I took some emergent leave to support my ageing father who was unexpectedly admitted to hospital. My family is currently in the process of preparing for my father’s placement in a residential aged care facility due to the inability to continue managing his care at home with the support of my mother. For those of you who have been through the experience of arranging a nursing home placement for an ageing loved one, you will understand and appreciate the complexities and challenges of such an undertaking.

When we work in health care for a long time, it is easy to overlook the complexity of the system, the many intricate processes and structures in place to help our patients access the care they need. However, when we are placed in the alternate position as a patient or consumer, one’s perspective on the health care system changes.

My experience has made me think about how patients and families with little or no experience of our health care system actually manage to navigate their way through it without support. For myself, I am fortunate to have worked in a complex health care environment for many years, which gives me insight, understanding and importantly, a high level of health literacy to support my family.

However, for those patients and families who present to a hospital or health care facility for the first time with no knowledge of how things work, the experience can be overwhelming. Even a seemingly simple task like completing a patient admission form can be extremely challenging.  Accompany the situation with a non-English speaking background, unique cultural need, poor literacy, eyesight impairment, or a mental health condition, then the complexity of a this seemingly simple task suddenly increases ten-fold, making the health care experience feel unmanageable.

So what is my point? While we are very fortunate to have access to world class health care services in Australia, the ability to navigate these services is a real issue for many people. That’s why as health care workers, it is essential to look at how we support people, particularly our growing older population through their health care experiences. It’s not just about getting to the end point of care, it’s about the quality of the journey and making it as comfortable and easy as possible for the patient and family to help ease the burden of a hospital admission.

This requires empathy, patience and the willingness to sometimes work beyond our normal scope to help people navigate their way through a very complex system, so they can receive the first class care we have the privilege of offering here at TPCH.

Patient safety

At TPCH, we have a proud culture of excellence in health care delivery. We treat many complex cases and perform many specialised procedures that ultimately improve the outcomes of our patients. Equally, these outcomes are supported by our strong focus on patient safety whereby we constantly review clinical outcomes and processes to ensure the best for the patient.

Contributing to TPCH’s strong safety focus is the ability to escalate and seek help when staff notice a patient is not doing as well as they should. This is particularly relevant as we welcome many new junior clinical staff to the organisation who will be responsible for providing and monitoring the direct care of patients. It is natural that some of our more junior staff may feel anxious about speaking up, however when dealing with patient care, it is essential that any perceived deterioration or concerns about the patient’s status are escalated as a priority for their ultimate safety.

Part of fostering a strong safety culture is a commitment to the values – respect, integrity, compassion, teamwork and high performance. Staff need to be able to work together in a respectful way to ensure there is open communication, trust, a commitment to learning, and the shared goal of providing safe, high-quality care to the patient. The presence of these will ensure we always act in the best interest of the patient which includes speaking up for safety!

Infrastructure update – Mental Health Crisis Stabilisation Facility

On 1 December, the Minister for Health announced that the delivery of the new Crisis Stabilisation Facility (CSF) was underway at TPCH to help improve potential gaps in mental health emergency care and to respond to increased mental health crisis presentations and to provide additional mental health care for the community, funded under the Better Together initiative. It will provide a dedicated space for individuals experiencing a mental health crisis, as a specialised care alternative to the emergency department.

The CSF will be a modular building located next to the TPCH emergency department and will consist of clinical spaces for six patients up to 23 hours, and six-bed short-stay unit for patients for up to 72 hours.

The Sustainable Assets and Infrastructure team are working with the appointed contractor to deliver the project for Mental Health. Design finalisation is underway for construction of a modular, relocatable, single-storey building. Construction of the facility will occur offsite, ready for installation at TPCH from April with site establishment occurring from next month. It is anticipated that the project will be completed in July and services operational shortly after that.  For more information visit – Mental Health Crisis Stabilisation Facility – The Prince Charles Hospital

FAST FACTS

EMU team

Today we will profile Rapid Access Medical Service (RAMS) / Early-assessment Medical Unit / Day Unit Investigations and Therapy (DUIT).

Did you know?:

• EMU is a 16-bed specialist acute medical ward, with six consultant medical teams leading the multidisciplinary teams.
• The ward multidisciplinary team comprises physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologist, podiatrist, dietitians and social workers to assist with sometimes complex patient discharge planning.
• RAMS/EMU/DUIT provides multiple access points across three different units and models of care with the aim of avoiding overnight hospital admissions, providing timely consultant and multidisciplinary reviews to minimise length of stay
• 

  RAMS team

  RAMS streamlines the process for admission for acute medical patients to expediate rapid and comprehensive assessment of acute medical patients to enhance capacity of the Emergency Department (ED). Acute medical patients including undifferentiated medical patients are transferred to the RAMS Unit for further assessment, investigations and facilitate admission, transfer or discharge as appropriate to maximise bed capacity and to facilitate early consultant and/or senior medical registrar review.

• DUIT supports planned intravenous therapy including immunoglobulins, blood transfusions, monoclonal antibody infusions, iron infusions and general intravenous fluid. Additionally the high risk foot clinic with podiatry and the infectious diseases team and bone marrow aspirates are undertaken to support timely patient diagnosis.
• The Rapid Access Clinic in co located with DUIT supporting medical review and facilitating early review post discharge, inpatient avoidance and direct GP referrals.

Staff profile

This week we will profile new Graduate Physiotherapist, Renee Sweeney.

Renee completed her studies at The University of Queensland last year which included invaluable placement experiences at various Metro North and South hospitals.

In her new role, Renee supports the treatment of patients on the orthopaedic ward, addressing a spectrum of orthopaedic injuries and surgeries.

She’s most excited about the privilege of caring for people, pursuing continuous learning and the prospect of becoming a valued member of TPCH’s Physiotherapy team.

Renee is passionate about building trust with patients, and places great importance on honesty, delivering excellent care, and exemplifying genuine goodness through her work. She values open communication to build professional relationships based on mutual respect, and teamwork to achieve shared goals.

Outside of work, Renee is a lifelong hockey enthusiast, having played since the age of 3. She enjoys spending her spare time at the beach, in a pilates class, and with family and friends. Welcome to TPCH Renee!

Shout out

This week’s shout out goes to the Protective Services team following some positive feedback received from the Secure Mental Health Rehabilitation Unit (SMHRU). The team was praised by SMHRU for their quick response and willingness to assist during a recent patient review, which was particularly challenging due to the acuity of patients on the day. A big thanks to Wendy and the team for their great support!

Today’s quote
“People will hear you better if you speak from a voice of compassion rather than authority. They long to be understood more than to be lectured.” – Youth Dynamics

Tami.