Dear colleagues,

I really didn’t want to have to talk about COVID again this week, but a week during the pandemic is a long time!

As you will have seen in the Incident Controller update this morning, following a case of community transmission in Brisbane visitor restrictions and mask wearing are currently in place across our facilities. Please keep up your physical distancing and hand hygiene. The Chief Health Officer also advised that if you are in a crowded area such as a shopping centre you should wear a mask. Please check the Queensland Health website for the contact tracing locations and follow the CHO’s advice around testing.

On a more positive note, I am so impressed with the brilliant people working in Metro North. I regularly see innovation and ingenuity both at the bedside and in our research facilities. As part of MN32 we are developing a range of research and innovation centres including the Jamieson Trauma Institute, the Genetics Institute, the Herston Biofabrication Institute, Herston Infectious Diseases Institute (HeIDI) and the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Institute.

Last month we officially opened the new Herston Biofabrication Institute space at Herston, but HBI has been operating as a virtual institute for several years. Recently HBI’s engineers teamed up with an RBWH physiotherapist and respiratory doctor to create a patient-specific adaptor for a positive expiratory pressure device to help a person cough. The team used a 3D scanner to capture the patient’s neck contour, 3D modelling to design an adaptor, and 3D printing to produce a prototype, which was successfully tested this week. The team hope to hand over the final version of the device to the patient in a couple of weeks.

HBI also held a successful inaugural Summer School in Clinically Applied 3D printing, which trained 15 clinicians to the basics of 3D modelling and 3D modelling. HBI is initiating a collaboration with the winner of the summer school’s medical device design challenge. The Queensland Tissue Bank aims to use 3D scanning of bone donations to help find the best possible match for a patient, and 3D printing to optimise the way cutting guides are designed to prepare the allografts. Well done to all involved.

For those off for school holidays and Easter next week, have a wonderful break.

Thank you again for everything you do.

Regards,

Jackie