Transition News 2nd Edition – 26 August 2021

A Message from Suellen

I want to start by saying a big thank-you to each and every one of you who has made our first 8 weeks as the newly amalgamated Western Health to be full of collaboration, authenticity and kindness.

Whilst we have all been busy meeting our usual demand, we have also banded together in response to recent COVID outbreaks as well as urgent transition activity. I know this has meant many of you have gone above and beyond your usual high efforts at work and I want to assure you this hasn’t gone unnoticed.

As we work together to become one Western Health, I can already see the immediate benefit to services provided to people of the West. Our recent COVID response is a perfect example of how together, we can collaborate, connect and provide care that is tailored, effective and accessible. This is so important given the communities we serve share many similarities and face similar health challenges.

I also want to remind you of some key agreed amalgamation principles. There will be no net job losses as a consequence of the voluntary amalgamation. To the contrary, we are working at pace to fill some pre-existing vacancies to support you all to achieve the delivery of both clinical and non-clinical services. We are also committed to enabling staff to engage and participate in the amalgamation work in a meaningful and efficient way without overburdening them. As we reach our second month together, we will start to increase some of our amalgamation planning activity. This will mean we will be seeking staff input on how we
plan for a future optimized state. We welcome your feedback and your ideas.

Our vision is to work with you so we can strive to achieve a seamless transition, and together, build a culture where people are proud to work.

Take care and stay safe.

Suellen Bruce

Who's Who?

In this edition we say welcome to:
Gurinder Kaur, Gian Rjano, Manju Paul, Katie Whelan who are joining our community nursing team and Keval Patel who will be working in the finance department at Bacchus Marsh.

Welcome

This edition, we introduce and welcome Claire Moody.

Following the announcement of the amalgamation, Claire was appointed to the role of Director of Transition on a 12 month basis.

Most recently, Claire worked in Western Health’s Public Affairs team as Senior Communications Advisor – Clinical Projects. She has supported an incredible breadth of work over the past few years, including a great deal of the communications support around COVID and prior to that, her support for accreditation and the transition into the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s at Sunshine, and more recently the transition to the expanded Sunshine ED. Recently graduating with a Masters in Health Service Management, Claire’s original clinical training and work was in speech pathology which led her to head up the Aspire Unit within Allied Health at Western Health, where she has worked since 2006.

Claire has a passion for improvement and leadership and has demonstrated strengths in workforce planning and development, advanced practice models of care and clinical governance, as well as communication across the spectrum of care in a major health service – these will be valuable assets in her new role.

With the current COVID situation, Claire and the project team are working remotely but they welcome your enquiries. Please email: Claire.Moody@wh.org.au or Sharon.Read@wh.org.au.

Click the link/image below to hear from Claire on the Kindness Matters podcast speaking about her “struggle juggle”. Stay around to hear her gorgeous children and what they have to say about their Mum!

Services and Programs

The Melton Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing Clinic has been busier than ever in the current lockdown, testing more than 8000 people since late July.

Since operations commenced at the service in March 2020, it has evolved from a walk-in service to a drive through testing site, and has proven to be a valuable service for the local community.

The introduction of the Test Tracker system on Tuesday 17th August was a milestone day at the clinic, with the positive impact of the new system felt across a number of divisions. Test Tracker removes the need for paper-based registration forms at the service which then need to be uploaded to the patient management system. It also allows results to be provided directly to the patient by the pathology provider, removing the
need to staff a results line and manually deliver results to patients 7 days per week.

The staff that been working on the results lines since March 2020 are very much looking forward to returning to their substantive positions. A big thanks to these staff and all the staff working at the Melton Drive-Through COVID-19 Testing Clinic.

Education information can be found on our intranet: Find out more click here.

To login: Click here.

What's New

Payroll: currently we are continuing to have GRAH (Grampian Region Area Health) manage the payroll for DjHS. It is planned that later in the year the payroll will be moved across to Melbourne Health who manage Western Health’s payroll. Once this occurs all your accrued entitlements will move across to Western Health. We will provide more information closer to the date but for the moment there is no change to the way payroll is managed aside from the name Western Health (and ABN) now being on your payslip.

ID Cards and badges: your manager will have received name badges for their team, WH security pass covers and new black covers for lanyards. If you are yet to receive these please ask your manager. If there
are any errors with the names please send an email to Tilitha Hunt (Tilitha.Hunt@djhs.org.au) in HR.

Western Health jobs: You are now able to access and apply for all vacant positions at Western Health, both internal and externally advertised. To do this click though the current intranet on
vacancies and register with Mercury e-Recruit and you will be able to see all suitable positions.

What's Next

Planning for the integration of both the Bacchus Marsh, Melton and Caroline Springs IT team and systems/applications into Western Health has started with an overall aim to align services and minimise downtime for staff.

Early email access has been prioritised by Digital Technology Services (DTS/IT) along with Microsoft Teams to enable smoother communications between Western Health and Bacchus Marsh, Melton and Caroline Springs sites. We hope to get this rolled out in the coming months.

The Cybersecurity solution in Bacchus Marsh, Melton and Carline Springs is being upgraded along with adding a 24×7 managed service which will actively monitor and protect all servers and computers in use.

If you have any IT questions or would like to highlight a unique IT related implementation in Bacchus Marsh, Melton and Carline Springs, please reach out to Matthew Whitehead (IT Transition Project Manager) or Cameron McBride (Director, DTS).

Did You Know?

Police recognise hospital staff’s extraordinary service

The community spirit is alive and well in Bacchus Marsh, with local
members of Victoria Police showing their appreciation to the staff at
Bacchus March and Melton Regional Hospital.

The local station took a collection to buy the hamper in order to to
recognise someone who had been performing extraordinary service
to support the community during COVID outbreaks.

For the full story, go to the Kindness Matters web page.

We’d love to hear from you about other stories of kindness across our
sites. More details on how to submit can be found on the Kindness
Matters page.