Generations of Metro North innovation graduates making bold changes

Across Metro North, generations of innovators are tackling new challenges every day, armed with a comprehensive grounding in implementation science and innovation and lessons learnt through practical, real-world application.

The Metro North Graduate Certificate program has delivered six cohorts of Metro North innovators who can now identify opportunities for improvement and make bold changes underpinned by rigorous academic training.

Undertaking the Graduate Certificate in Health Services Innovation was a pivotal career turning point for The Prince Charles Hospital Director of Occupational Therapy Amber Jones and Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) Assistant Director Innovation and Implementation Champika Pattullo.

What started as a quality improvement activity at RBWH for Champika has grown into a groundbreaking initiative bringing together 20 project teams across multiple hospitals and a PhD on “developing a framework for implementing opioid stewardship programs in acute hospitals”.

When Amber joined forces with fellow cohort colleague Perry Judd to deliver comprehensive care closer to home, they questioned the established practice of patients travelling long distances to attend occupational therapy and physiotherapy outpatient appointments at RBWH.

They secured support to implement and evaluate Queensland’s first Telehealth Burns Service grounded in comprehensive implementation science knowledge and health economic principles gained through the Graduate Certificate.

In the first six to 12 months alone, the program saved more than 500,000 patient travel kilometres, and the overwhelmingly positive patient experience inspired Amber to commence formal research through a PhD to report on the development and evaluation of telehealth models for the delivery of multidisciplinary burn care.

Metro North staff like Archana Mishra have been able to take their practical healthcare project management, stakeholder engagement, clinical implementation experience and academic skills to the next level.

Application of knowledge gained through the program supported her to achieve great successes in strategic and award-winning innovations such as BeFIT 4 Lungs, Urban Indigenous Respiratory Outpatient Clinic (UROC), Heart Outreach Program for Health Equity (HOPE) and the Statewide Pulmonary and Cardiac Telerehabilitation (PaCT) program.

The drive to deliver excellence in patient care is at the core of Dr Simone Garret-Walcott’s practice. She developed evidence-based guidelines for Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Monitoring, ensuring psychiatrists were able to deliver the best quality of care, no matter where a patient attends.

The Graduate Certificate program equipped her with the skills and knowledge to apply a combination of three implementation science frameworks to formulate, implement and evaluate the use of an ECT Monitoring Protocol.

Community and Oral Health (COH) has made significant contributions, designing programs, infrastructure supports and educational opportunities for the empowerment of change makers.

Empowering staff to provide care differently and extending their knowledge and skills to acute settings in the community for COH was Mary Wheeldon’s goal in 2020 when she established the Innovation and Research Centre.

Over the last five years, Mary has spearheaded initiatives that cultivate a strong research and innovation culture at COH, which is now home to three generations of Graduate Certificate Innovators including Research Director Nicole Gavin and Service Improvement Officer Rebecca Hayes.

As members of the COH Innovation and Research team, these powerhouse supporters are embedding a strong commitment to innovation, research and service improvement. Through securing executive support to establish dedicated grant funding opportunities, COH staff are supported and encouraged to redesign, innovate, invest and disinvest, and generate new evidence to identify gaps in the research.

The benefits of providing structural research and innovation support across Metro North were identified in the MN32 vision, through the intention to create a Knowledge and Translation Hub.

That hub, now known as Metro North’s Helix Hub, has been heavily influenced by the contributions of staff across four cohorts undertaking the Graduate Certificate course with projects dedicated to development, design and service offering, including Sharon Hodby, Rebecca Moore, Rhiannon Barnes and Kim Hyam. The Helix Hub now has two Grad Certificate Alumni, Amy Eldridge and Melanie Carter, permanently employed as Implementation Support Specialists.

Metro North graduates are driving patient-focused innovation across the health service and beyond, applying their big picture systems thinking and making bold decisions that are delivering big outcomes for our patients and the health service. They continue to show resilience and tenacity in the face of challenges and recognise that small incremental steps can lead to progress and change in the name of a bigger vision.

The Graduate Certificate has created an internal network of like-minded high potential clinicians and health service administrators across facilities and professional streams who have become active supporters and ambassadors of innovation, research, healthcare improvement and knowledge translation.