Transition News 5th Edition – 24 November 2021

Providing Best Care to our community

It is hard to believe it’s been five months since the former Djerriwarrh and Western Health transitioned to one health service on the 1st of July. Whilst Covid-19 has continued to impact all of our lives, both personally and professionally, I am incredibly impressed with the collaboration and collegiality that I continue to witness and hear about as teams rally together and pivot day-to-day in order to provide Best Care for our newly expanded community.

Whilst we are not yet out of the woods, I do look forward to getting back on sites apart from Footscray soon with the easing of restrictions. One of the most favourite elements of my role is getting to know the incredible staff, and I have missed being able to do this as much as usual since we became ‘One Western Health’.

Despite the ever-present Covid-19 challenges, the transition team and the senior leadership team have continued to work closely with many of you to progress some key pieces of work. The flexibility shown by all sites and services to adjust and support each other, as seen with the Maternity ward increasing their intake by 60% to assist Joan Kirner and the Medical Surgical Unit working with Williamstown campus to transfer their transition care patients to Bacchus Marsh are all examples of us supporting the communities of the west to deliver Best Care – and benefits of the amalgamation. I would also like to acknowledge the Melton Testing Clinic who have recently upgraded their facilities, tweaked some of their processes and topped it all off by achieving an incredible milestone of 100,000 tests, making it one of the busiest testing sites in the west.

As I have said in webinars, we remain committed to giving staff a voice in all elements of transition activity and have had great staff engagement so far – and with all that has been a going on I would like to say a huge thank you for this commitment and engagement. If you are keen to get involved in the working groups either in an ongoing or short term nature or potentially contribute to designing the culture for our united organisations, please click here to register your interest.

I look forward to updating you more on the transition and answering your questions in our next series of webinars scheduled for early December and hope to see many of you on-site soon.

Cheers,
Russell

Community Engagement Transition Committee

• Carolyn Rowan;
• Dawn Kelly;
• Jim Asimakopoulos;
• John Keddy;
• Michelle Dellios;
• Nicole Kearns; (Former Chair Diversity and consumer committee)
• Peter Webster;  (CEO Kirrip)
• Ruairi Cleary; (Melton Council);
• Clare Pridham; (Moorabool Council)

Expression of interest

We are committed to giving staff a voice in all elements of the transition activity and are exploring ways to facilitate this through transition staff focus groups and transition representative roles that will hold memberships in the working groups. Another keyway staff can be involved is through our ‘designing the culture’ work. This initiative is focused on integrating the Bacchus Marsh and Melton cultures into Western Health. This will be a sub-committee connected to the workforce, culture and communication working group. To register your “expression of interest”, click on the EOI button above.

Welcome

This edition we are excited to welcome Siobhan Newman, our Community Services Integration Consultant. Siobhan brings extensive experience in the Community Health sector with proficient knowledge of clinical practice, community service quality programmes, and community service integration solutions.

Siobhan will be responsible for leading the review of current practices, accreditation readiness plans and funding streams. She will also lead staff engagement and collaboration to support the implementation of clinical practice alignment and clinical practice transition plans.

Patient and staff stories

We recently completed a series of stories on what Best Care means to our patients and staff.

Click here or on the image to find out what best care means to Bacchus Marsh/Melton patients John, Amie and Michelle

Click here or on the image to find about what best care means to BM/M/CS staff Katherine, Roshan, Nevine, Candice and Kerryn.

Services and Programs

Best care framework

The Best Care Framework describes care from the expectations of patients and outlines the behaviours of front-line staff, managers & senior clinicians and the executive and board to provide, lead and govern best care.
Click here to visit our Live Best Care Microsite to see an interactive model of the framework where you can click on each statement to learn more.

Western Health Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety Plan Survey

Western Health would like to evaluate the current Aboriginal Health Cultural Safety plan and use the feedback in the development of the next iteration.

This evaluation work is of critical importance to Western Health in developing our next Cultural Safety Plan which will shape our commitment to patients and their families, our staff and volunteers over the next three years.

To assist us in the research, we invite you to take part in an online survey where we will ask questions that will help us:

• understand the impact of the 2019-2021 Cultural Safety Plan; and
• understand your vision for the future to better inform the recommendations for the 2022-2025 Cultural Safety Plan.

The survey can be found here.

All respondents will go into the draw to win an original artwork by a local Aboriginal artist.

Any questions should be directed to Tanya Druce, Manager Aboriginal Health, Policy & Planning – Tanya.Druce@wh.org.au

What's New

New name for the hospital

Did You Know?

New Dental Chairs

Living Best Care at Bacchus Marsh, Melton and Caroline Springs

At Western Health, our vision for outstanding patient care is that each of our patients receives ‘Best Care’ from us, every time, everywhere.

Five months into the transition, it is clear that staff at Bacchus Marsh, Melton and Caroline Springs (BM/M/CS) campuses share this vision – this can be seen in the everyday care of patients and staff endeavours to review and improve care continually.

To support and focus the great work of BM/M/CS staff and services to provide and improve care, the Western Health Best Care Framework is being rolled out across all sites. This Framework is an approach to clinical governance that focuses on care from patients’ perspectives. It translates into day-to-day behaviours and systems supporting person-centred, coordinated, right and safe care for every patient.

The Best Care Framework roll-out was launched on 8 November 2021 at the BM/M/CS’ Keeping You in the Loop Meeting’.

Well done to everyone who had fun ‘Russling’… finding Russell in the ‘Living Best Care at Bacchus Marsh/Melton/Caroline Springs site’ and sending in a short description of what Best Care means to them.

Prizes were awarded to our quickest ‘Russling’ spotters, Michelle Bingham (top left), Karen Farrugia (top right), Ashlee Svedis (bottom right) and Sandy Olney (bottom left).

The following Best Care description comes from Ashlee … Best care to me is having compassion, being understanding in any situation. During the pandemic things have been rough on everyone. A simple Hello / Wave / Smile is all it takes to help someone’s day.   

Click here to learn more about living Best Care at BM/M/CS.

Remembrance Day

We honoured those who have sacrificed their lives for us this Remembrance Day, as we laid three wreaths at Bacchus Marsh and Melton.

Lest we forget