18 September 2007

Hunter New England Health employees from across the region celebrated a year of achievement and innovation last night at the 2007 Achievement Awards.

The awards presented last night included the Quality Awards, Merit Awards and the Heroes of Health Award.

“I was pleased to be able to present awards to teams and individuals from right across the Hunter New England Health region and recognise them for the outstanding work they are doing for their communities,” Acting Chief Executive Dr Nigel Lyons said.

“It is important we recognise the many quality improvements and innovative projects that are being undertaken by our staff members to improve the health of our communities and the care we provide to our patients and clients.

“I am very proud of all the finalists and winners and congratulate them on their achievements throughout the past year.”

The Quality Awards are designed to recognise teams of Hunter New England Health staff who have used quality management principles to significantly improve their service. The entry criteria is consistent with the 2007 NSW Health Awards and finalists are named in seven categories, with an overall winner named from the seven category winners.

The Merit Awards are presented for outstanding performance of a unit or service and outstanding performance of a manager and clinical leader.

The Hunter New England Health Achievement Awards are presented in the lead-up to Quality Week in October, which culminates in the presentation of the 2007 NSW Health Awards in Sydney.

Hunter New England Health entered15 projects in the 2007 NSW Health Awards, which recognise projects that have followed the quality process to improve services and outcomes. More than 120 projects were entered across the State and represent the best of the State’s quality initiatives.

Three Hunter New England Health projects have been selected as finalists for these awards and winners will be announced at a function in Sydney on 12 October this year.

WINNERS IN THE QUALITY AWARDS WERE:    

Overall Quality Award Winner for 2007:

John Hospital Emergency Department for its project: ED redesign and streaming to improve access to emergency care.

2007 Quality Award winners:

Category: Make prevention everybody’s business
Winner: Quality improvement program to reduce MRO transmission in a tertiary ICU – John Hunter Hospital Intensive Care and Infection Prevention and Control Unit.
Project description: The bacterium multi-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MRAB) causes outbreaks of infection in Intensive Care (ICU) that have proven to be extremely difficult to control. In August 2000, MRAB was detected from clinical specimens from three patients in a 16-bed intensive care unit serving a tertiary care hospital and an outbreak was declared. A multi-disciplinary quality improvement effort commenced with implementation of many changes to patient and unit management. The highly motivated staff developed educational tools and embraced the introduction of an alcoholic hand rub and other strategies and the outbreak was brought under control. The unit has remained free of endemic MRAB since that time.

Category: Create better experiences for people using health services
Winner: Children’s cancer and haematology service patient treatment passport – John Hunter Children’s Hospital Late Effects Clinic
Project description: The implementation of a Patient Treatment Passport (PTP) has provided the increased number of survivors of childhood cancer with a clear and concise document containing the relevant information pertinent to the type of cancer treatment and health surveillance recommendations for each individual that may assist with the early detection of any future potential late effects of treatment. The PTP remains the property of the patient and they are encouraged to show it to their health care provider especially when moving or travelling overseas.

Chief Executive’s Encouragement Award: Nursing admission documentation SOMBER – John Hunter Hospital Ward H3 Nephrology and Gastroenterology.
Project description: Ward H3 of the Division of Medicine at John Hunter Hospital has successfully developed a tool to improve nursing admission documentation. The issue was identified through the Division of Medicine 2005 Documentation Audit and a core team of the ward staff developed the acronym SOMBER to prompt staff when attending admission documentation. The results of subsequent audits after the rollout of SOMBER were excellent and the project has now been incorporated into the Division of Medicine resource booklets for documentation.

Category: Strengthen primary health and continuing care in the community
Winner: Falls risk assessment in at risk community clients – Cessnock Community Health and Kurri Kurri Physiotherapy.
Project description: Falls are a major cause of injury, disability and increasing cost of health care in the future. Approximately 30 per cent of people over 65 years of age and living in the community fall each year. Clients of the Day Respite Centre at Kurri Kurri who were identified as being at high risk of falls were invited to attend a Falls Prevention Group (FPG) while attending the day centre. Clients made a 12 per cent improvement in their Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT) in six weeks. Clients who returned for a three-month follow-up maintained 79 per cent of the improvement they made during the program.

Category: Build regional and other partnerships for health
Winner: Pre-hospital Acute Stroke Triage (PAST) – John Hunter Hospital Acute Stroke Service, John Hunter Hospital Emergency Department, NSW Ambulance Service, Hunter New England Imaging Service and John Hunter Hospital G2 Medical Ward.
Project description: The Pre-hospital Acute Stroke Triage (PAST) protocol was developed by John Hunter Hospital staff in partnership with NSW Ambulance and Hunter Health Imaging Service to reduce pre-hospital and emergency department delays for stroke patients accessing stroke care. The stroke triage protocol improves access for acute stroke patients to organised stroke care and ‘clot busting’ therapy. Improved, rapid access results in substantial improvements with long-term outcomes.

Category: Make smart choices about the costs and benefits of health services
Winner: Clinical pharmacy medication chart review: a virtual experience – Tablelands Cluster, Tenterfield Hospital and Northern Sector Pharmacy Service
Project description: During 2006 Tenterfield Community Hospital experienced a number of incidents related to adverse effects of prescribed drug therapy. A root cause analysis (RCA) of a serious incident at the hospital recommended some form of clinical pharmacy service be made available. A novel solution utilising a high-speed broadband connection allowed a clinical pharmacist to review the medication charts of selected patients while located at Tamworth Hospital. During the eight-month study period, 75 patients had their medications reviewed and 7% of patients had a change made to their therapy as a result, there were no serious Severity Assessment Code (SAC) 1/2 incidents involving medications, and the number of SAC 3/4 incidents was also reduced. There was also a trend (though not statistically significant at this point) towards a reduced Length of Stay and fewer readmissions.

Category: Build a sustainable health workforce
Winner: A multidisciplinary human factors training course – Hunter New England Health Rural Training Unit.
Project description:
Human factors account for 70 per cent of medical error. This project assessed the impact of multi-disciplinary human factors training courses integrated with resuscitation training for GP registrars and nurses to improve safety protective attitudes and behaviours in rural hospitals in the Hunter New England Health. Two workshops (six groups) involving 16 GP registrars and 17 nurses were conducted in March 2007. Changes in safety attitudes and protective behaviours were measured before and after the human factors training. Statistically significant changes in protective safety attitudes and behaviours were observed after the training with some changes in work practices reported at three months. Multi-disciplinary human factors training is feasible in a rural setting and can be incorporated with resuscitation skills training workshops.

Category: Be ready for new risks and opportunities
Winner: ED redesign and streaming to improve access to emergency care – John Hunter Hospital Emergency Department.
Project description:
In 2006 John Hunter Hospital Emergency Department (JHH ED) saw an increase in presentations of 16 per cent compared with 2003. By August, there was Emergency Department overcrowding, increasing senior staff unrest and lack of support for junior staff. A clinical redesign process to improve patient and staff journey in the ED was implemented, focusing on the ‘front of house’ fast-track area and streaming patients to staff teams according to the complexity and acuity of their presenting problem. Increasing the numbers of patients being treated in the Fast Track area reduced the number of patients occupying a bed in the acute treatment area. The flow-on effect was increased capacity across the ED and reduced overcrowding. The successful implementation resulted in significant improvement in patients’ length of stay, triage-waiting times, ‘did not wait’ times and emergency access performance.

MERIT AWARD WINNERS:

Clinical Unit of the Year
Referral Information Centre

Non-Clinical Unit of the Year
Platypus 2 Billing Team

Manager of the Year
Stewart Leeman, Capital Works Manager

Clinical Leader of the Year
Dr David Durrheim, Services Director, Health Protection, Population Health

HEROES OF HEALTH AWARD:
Acting Chief Executive Dr Nigel Lyons last night awarded two Heroes of Health awards. They went to:

Warialda Crash Disaster Team
“In giving this award, I praise the dedication and exceptional skill of staff and managers at Warialda Community Hospital, local doctors Di Coote and Clem Gordon and Tamworth physician Dr Chris Trethewy who was on board the Westpac Rescue Helicopter when it performed an emergency landing only to continue to Warialda and assist in the effort to save lives,” Dr Lyons said.

Dr John Wiggers, Director, Population Health
“Dr Wiggers has had many achievements throughout his career at Hunter New England Health but two stand out in particular. As an advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health issues, Dr Wiggers has been heavily involved in the formation of partnerships to ensure culturally appropriate and effective population health services are available throughout the region. He has also made an outstanding contribution to the reduction of crime in NSW through the development of the Alcohol Linking Program. In partnership with NSW Police, Dr Wiggers and his team led the implementation of the program, which saw police identify premises whose intoxicated patrons become involved in crime. He was honoured this year with the NSW Police Commissioner’s Certificate of Merit – the highest level of award the Commissioner can give to a civilian for non-bravery related activity or effort.”

Contact: Kay Cope

Phone: 6776 9817