Our recent STAR Award winner for Excellence in Research, Teaching and Innovation is the team of Allied Health ICU Educators.
The Excellence in Research, Teaching and Innovation award is for an individual, group or team who develop innovative ways to improve the quality of health care and/or service delivery. This may include:
- Providing quality teaching/education.
- Developing innovative approaches to enhancing care or service delivery.
- Undertaking research that brings about significant improvements in clinical quality and safety.
Our Allied Health (AH) department nominated the award-winning team for their wonderful contribution to upskilling allied health clinicians to work in ICU and critical care:
- Ashlee Gervasoni, Transformation Associate, Strategy, Transformation and Projects
- Jackson Wood, ICU Physiotherapist, Critical Care and Surgical Services at Casey Hospital
- Katherine (Kat) Wapling, Senior Speech Pathologist in Acute & Critical Care at Casey Hospital
- Maria Shenouda, ICU, Critical Care & Surgical Physiotherapist, Critical Care Unit Allied Health Lead
Pictured: Allied Health ICU Educators – Ashlee Gervasoni, Kat Wapling and Jackson Wood. Absent: Maria Shenouda.
The four AH educators were employed as part of a grant from the Department of Health in 2022. They all held strong clinical skills and knowledge of ICU and critical care, and some experience in developing and delivering education to their peers.
The first 3 months of the role involved comprehensive orientation and support in project management, and teaching and education development skills from the WISER education team. From the outset, the ICU educators were highly motivated and enthusiastic to produce high-quality education packages for their fellow clinicians and they were constantly driven to achieve the next level.
As we know through the pandemic, the delivery of education changed to e-learning and virtual interactive sessions. The team eagerly and quickly learnt to use these new education development tools such as our e-learning authoring tool Easy Generator. They also supplemented this by taking the time to learn how to create engaging education videos through online tools. These tools take time to learn and can be fiddly for the novice creator, but they all persevered and the results speak for themselves.
Their work was well-received, with overwhelmingly positive evaluations and pre and post data demonstrating that the intervention impacted the skills and knowledge of our learners.
Sharon Glass, Allied Health Education Lead – Workforce Innovation Strategy Education and Research (WISER) Unit, Allied Health, is grateful for the impact the team has made in the program.
“I would like to congratulate the team on what they achieved in such a short space of time. They were amazing to work with and it was such a pleasure to have them in WISER and watch them grow.”
Ashlee, Jackson, Katherine and Maria of the Allied Health ICU Educators team are grateful for the recognition of their work and contributions.
“We feel very honoured to receive the STAR award for our work in upskilling clinicians in critical care. We really enjoyed this experience, greatly due to the collaboration with many of our multidisciplinary team members.”
“We would like to acknowledge the contributions from members of our respective teams (Nutrition and Dietetics, Physiotherapy and Speech Pathology) and the significant support provided by our Heads of Profession, the Allied Health Education Lead, and greater team within the WISER Unit.”
Congratulations to Ashlee, Jackson, Katherine and Maria for winning this STAR Award!
If you would like to nominate a colleague or team, you can do so at any time by visiting the STAR Awards portal. For more information about the STAR Awards program, Monash Health Employee Recognition Program page.
Approved by Chris McLoughlin (Executive Director People and Culture)