Chief Executive Update – Wednesday, 4 May 2022
As of today, we have:
- 109 COVID-19 positive inpatients
- 185 employees with COVID-19
- 40 employees in precautionary quarantine
- 80 employees who are primary close contacts and working under public health exemption
In this update, we cover:
- Victoria state budget
- Recognition for Professor Rhonda Stuart for outstanding service in the public sector during COVID-19
- International Day of the Midwife
- COVID-19 clearance process for our patients
- Update on the Health and Allied Services, Managers and Administrative Workers (Victorian Public Sector) (Single Interest Employers) Enterprise Agreement 2021-2025
- Preparing our patients for their voting options in the upcoming federal election
- Choosing Wisely award winner!
- A big congratulations to all our Allied Health Award winners!
- Meet our Allied Health graduates
- Implementing a new Warehouse Management System
- Mandatory and targeted training
- Walk this way! – Join the Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital
- Live a longer, better life with our Healthy Body and Mind Hub
- Be Well with mindful moments
Victoria state budget
The Victorian Government handed down the 2022-23 budget yesterday, with a strong focus on Victoria’s health system.
We have experienced first-hand the challenges on hospitals and our teams throughout the pandemic, so it is pleasing to see new funding announced to assist us to continue to provide services to our community.
The budget includes funding to double the capacity of the Casey Hospital emergency department, $74 million towards the opening of the Victorian Heart Hospital and funding to continue support for local public health units.
As we continue to work closely with government to understand the details of this budget, we’ll provide further updates about what this means for our health service. You can learn more about the state’s budget by visiting the Budget 2022-23 website.
Recognition for Professor Rhonda Stuart for outstanding service in the public sector during COVID-19
I’m sure you will all join me in congratulating Professor Rhonda Stuart, Monash Health’s Director of Infection Prevention and Epidemiology, who has been recognised in the 2022 IPAA (Institute of Public Administration Australia) Victoria’s Top 50 Public Sector Women (Victoria) list.
The awards, which this year focused on ‘COVID-19 heroes’, recognise individual excellence and achievement of exceptional female leaders and their significant work in the Victorian public sector.
Over the past two years, Professor Stuart has been involved in many milestones as part of our pandemic response, including caring for Australia’s first confirmed COVID-19 patient, receiving the first COVID-19 vaccine in Victoria, and leading newly-formed Monash Health South East Public Health Unit.
Professor Stuart has expressed her thanks to the Infection Prevention team, the Vaccination Program, our Contact Tracing team, and everyone across our organisation who has continued to deliver care in a constantly shifting environment. While I join her sharing the praise, I also want to thank Professor Stuart for being such an important leader at Monash Health and on being recognised for these awards.
International Day of the Midwife
This Thursday (5 May) is International Day of the Midwife (IDM).
It is a day that allows us to recognise and celebrate the hard work and dedication of midwives globally and of course the 600 midwives we are lucky to have at Monash Health.
At Monash Health, our midwifery team is at the forefront of improved health outcomes for women, their babies, and their families with over 10,000 women being cared for across our maternity service.
This year’s theme is ‘Celebrating 100 Years of Progress’ and acknowledges the contribution that our wonderful midwives make to our patients and the wider community. This milestone year provides an opportunity to explore the achievements and progress made as individuals and collective over the last century.
Yesterday, Karen Taylor, Midwife Manager Birth Suite and PUA, and NAMAS nominee, joined our Employee Forum to reflect on what being a midwife means, advancements in midwifery and how the team will be celebrating International Day of the Midwife. You can watch Karen’s conversation with our General Manager of Women’s & Newborn Program and Moorabbin Hospital, Andrea Rindt here.
Thank you, as always, for the role you play in helping us provide excellent care to our community.
Andrew Stripp
Chief Executive
Key Messages
COVID-19 clearance process for our patients
A reminder that if your patient requires COVID-19 clearance, we have a form and process in place to manage this.
Our COVID-19 Clearance form and flowchart are available via our COVID-19 Model of Care page and the Infection Prevention intranet page.
If you have a patient that requires COVID-19 clearance, please download and email the completed form to covidclearance@monashhealth.org. COVID clearance emails will be checked regularly, including at weekends, so please don’t contact Infection Prevention directly with your COVID-19 clearance enquiries.
Update – Health and Allied Services, Managers and Administrative Workers (Victorian Public Sector) (Single Interest Employers) Enterprise Agreement 2021-2025
As part of the implementation of the Health and Allied Services, Managers and Administrative Enterprise Bargaining Agreement 2021 – 2025 (EA), timelines have now been confirmed for when you can expect a wage increase and any back payment owed to you (where applicable).
Some classifications in the Health and Allied Services stream are impacted by classification translations, and I encourage you to check if your classification is affected.
If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact hradvice@monashhealth.org.
Preparing our patients for the upcoming federal election
With the upcoming Federal Election scheduled for Saturday 21 May, our patients may have questions about how they can vote.
This year, and due to ongoing COVID-19 challenges, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) is unable to provide face-to-face mobile polling services at health services across Victoria.
In preparation for the election, the AEC has voting arrangements in place for our patients who find themselves in our care and unable to attend a polling place on election day.
While you are not expected to assist patients in exercising their right to vote, you can familiarise yourself with these arrangements to help keep our patients informed about the voting options available to them if they have any questions.
Choosing Wisely award winner!
Choosing Wisely Australia is a healthcare initiative that aims to improve the safety and quality of healthcare through the carefully considered selection of tests, treatments and procedures for patients.
Through the weekly CMO newsletter, the Pathology Choosing Wisely champions ran a series of articles to create awareness and promote conversations regarding unnecessary tests, test duplications, efficient use of resources, improving patient safety and quality of care.
The Pathology Program is working with the EMR team towards enhancements to complement the commitment to sustained improvement. The coming enhancements to EMR will provide for automated alerts when detecting duplicated test requests.
Program Director, Pathology, Beena Kumar spoke at the Choosing Wisely Australia National Meeting on Tuesday 3 May, where our achievement was announced live. Thank you Beena, for sharing the wonderful work of Monash Health Pathology.
A big congratulations to all our Allied Health Award winners
On Monday 2 May, we celebrated our Allied Health Awards.
This was a chance for us to recognise the commitment and contributions of our Allied Health Award winners, and to acknowledge the wonderful work all our Allied Health teams do every day.
As part of the event, Dr Abby Foster, Allied Health Research Advisor, gave a powerful presentation titled “Finding joy at work: The promise of allied health clinical research”. Dr Abby Foster was joined in conversation by Jacinta Winderlich, Paediatric Clinical Specialist Dietitian, and Hannah Ross, Senior Clinical Physiotherapist.
If you didn’t get a chance to attend, you haven’t missed out! You can find out all about the winners and watch the full event here.
Meet our Allied Health graduates
Over the past weeks, we’ve published a series of profiles of our Allied Health Early Graduate Program.
Read the last two instalments in the series to find out why Janelle moved to Australia to pursue a passion for helping people and what made Emily decide to become a social worker.
Read all the articles here, and we wish them all the best for their time with Monash Health.
Implementing a new Warehouse Management System
We are implementing a new digital Warehouse Management System at Monash Health that will allow our warehouse to track and trace orders more effectively.
To facilitate the implementation, there will be an outage to our ordering system (I-Proc, Imprest, Winc, Allanby, & hTrak interface) from 3pm Friday 6 May to 12 noon Monday 9 May.
Mandatory and Targeted training
With Accreditation approaching, please ensure you have completed the targeted and mandatory training that has been allocated to you in LATTE as soon as possible.
If you’re curious about what you need to do or wondering what the difference between mandatory and targeted training is, you can read our FAQs here.
Walk this way
If you’ve just finished the Walking Challenge, or if you need to make up for missed steps, we want you to Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital.
22 May marks the tenth birthday of the Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital and is a chance to raise vital funds for children in our care. Since 2013 the initiative has raised over $1.2million to help create a healthier future for sick children.
It’s free for Monash Health employees when you register with discount code: MHE2022. For more information and to register, visit the Walk for Monash Children’s Hospital website.
Live a longer, better life
This month the Healthy Body and Mind Hub teaches you the power of longevity.
Throughout May, you’ll learn from the lifestyles of the five communities worldwide with the lowest rates of disease, highest qualities of life, and longest life expectancies.
The Healthy Body and Mind Hub is a fitness and wellbeing resource available to all Monash Health employees. It’s an online learning platform filled with health and wellness resources like webinars, podcasts, and fun fitness challenges each week.
Be Well with mindful moments
Sometimes a few moments are all it takes to reduce stress and improve your sense of wellbeing.
The Be Well program is made up of Monash Health psychologists who support Monash Health teams. They have plenty of simple interventions you can practice during your workday to reduce stress and promote mentally healthy teams.
All managers are requested to share these updates with their teams and discuss at stand-ups and handovers. Please print a copy and display it in communication books and on employee noticeboards.
As advice and information evolve, please consult the latest updates and visit the Department of Health Coronavirus website and the Monash Health COVID-19 website for employees regularly for the latest.