Our recent STAR Award winner for Improving Care and Access is the team of:
- Sophie Wardrop, Occupational Therapist, Neurological rehabilitation & NDIS, Kingston Centre
- Krista Burke, Senior Clinician Physiotherapist, Neurosciences, Kingston Centre
The Improving Care and Access award is for an individual, group or team that develop improved ways for patients to access and manage their care. This may include:
- Developing partnerships with our community to enhance patient independence and wellbeing.
- Supporting prevention and early intervention.
- Developing new ways to help patients or colleagues feel safe, included, and experience improved equity of care.
Sophie and Krista have worked for over 12 months rehabilitating and discharge planning for a patient, aged in his 50’s, who had a stroke. The patient’s case was complicated by his bariatric needs and initially required six people to care for him.
The pair worked tirelessly with a number of stakeholders to ensure Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) was considered when working with this patient. Their thorough approach included:
- Consultation with multiple equipment providers, OHS training and education
- The inclusion of the patient and his family in all decisions
- Report-writing and advocacy with NDIS
- Demonstrating and linking his disability needs to extensive and highly specialised equipment and care for him to return home
- Utilising community NDIS support to facilitate the design, prescription and fitting of a specialised and customised power wheelchair
- Conducting extensive carer training to ensure the comfort, care and discharge of the patient was as smooth as possible
The team’s ability to balance creativity, practicality, safety and dignity was outstanding. Without their input, this man would not have been able to access the assistance and environment required to allow him to return home to live with his family. Through the rehabilitation supported by Sophie and Krista, the patient’s condition progressed to only requiring four people for his care, instead of six.
Sophie and Krista’s work has also resulted in the ward having access to and being educated in the use of a number of new equipment options to help with manual handling. The new equipment includes a power-driven bed with seating functions, specialised pressure mattress with assisted rolling functions and specialised commodes for showering.
The pair’s ability to engage with and co-ordinate stakeholders at all levels of the organisation and community has been exceptional. And that is why the Occupational Therapy department have nominated Sophie and Krista for this award.
On reflection about receiving the award, Krista shares, “I’d like to acknowledge the contributions of the Dandenong South West 4 team for their proactive and thorough handover of this patient from acute to subacute. I’d also like to acknowledge the commitment of the multi-disciplinary team on North West 2 at Kingston for working collaboratively to achieve such a patient centred outcome.”
Congratulations to Sophie and Krista 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 Michael Holman, Acting Executive Director People and Culture