Recipients of Monash Health’s July-September STAR Quarterly Awards were honoured last week at a presentation which formed part of the Senior Leadership Team meeting.
S.T.A.R (Special Thanks and Recognition) focuses on supporting Monash Health’s relentless pursuit of excellence by acknowledging and celebrating individuals and teams that demonstrate their commitment to our guiding principles and values.
Chief Executive Andrew Stripp shared inspiring stories of how they are pursuing excellence in their work, and congratulated the people behind the stories, who provide extraordinary care and compassion to our patients and each other.
The STAR quarterly awards form a key part of Monash Health’s Strategic Plan 2018-2023.
List of categories and award winners
Outstanding Care or Service Delivery
Winner: Belinda Carpenter – Dietitian, North 3 at Dandenong Hospital
Nominated by Janet Golder
Excellent Experiences (2 x Winners)
Winner 1: Irma Shelton – Personal Services Assistant, Medical Therapy Unit
Nominated by Carolyn Greely
Winner 2: Dr Kieran Allen – Doctor in the Mental Health program
Nominated by Rosemary McKemmish
Exceptional Teamwork
Winner: Child Life Therapy and Pathology teams
Nominated by Amy Thomas
Excellence in Research, Teaching and Innovation
Winner: Excellence in Research Support Services
Nominated by Anjali Dhulia
Improving Care and Access
Winner: Healthy Mothers, Health Babies Program
Nominated by Sam Challands
Managing Wisely
Winner: Neil Sigamoney and the Distributed Service Centre Project team
Nominated by Stuart Donaldson
In Pursuit of Excellence
Winner: Speech Pathology IDDSI implementation – Kathryn Potter and Audrey Price
Nominated by Simone Munro
Details of award nominations
Outstanding Care or Service Delivery
This category recognises an individual, group or team who have achieved outstanding care, or service delivery.
Winner: Belinda Carpenter – Dietitian, North 3 at Dandenong Hospital
Nominated by Janet Golder
Belinda is thorough and diligent in her monitoring of nutritional adequacy, fasting days, and nutritional risk of surgical patients on her ward. She communicates clinical risks of delayed nutrition intervention in a timely manner and escalates appropriately to all team members. Belinda is an outstanding example of an Allied Health employee who advocates for improved patient care and reduction of clinical risk for a patient cohort who are particularly vulnerable to malnutrition risk.
Excellent Experiences
This award is for an individual, group or team who have made a positive impact on the experience of our people, patients or consumers.
We had two recipients for this award:
Winner 1: Irma Shelton- Personal Services Assistant in Medical Therapy Unit
Nominated by Carolyn Greely
Irma has been working in the Medical Therapy Unit as our Personal Services Assistant. The Medical Therapy Unit cares for patients aged from one to 67 who attend for a full day of blood transfusions every three weeks. Irma has touched the hearts of so many patients and employees in her years working at Monash Health, and especially during her time working in our unit. She has always gone above and beyond for our patients and epitomises the Monash Health ICARE values. Irma is a great example to her peers and has made such a valuable contribution to our pursuit of excellence. Irma has taken great pride in her work and is always very professional. She has used initiative and innovation to make our unit pristine, warm and friendly. She has been a huge asset to this organisation and we miss her dearly in the unit.
Winner 2: Dr Kieran Allen – Doctor in the Mental Health program
Nominated by Rosemary McKemmish
Kieran continually works hard to manage his own condition and to continue working, studying and enhancing the experiences of his patients and his colleagues. Recently Kieran courageously wrote a piece for his personal blog about his own experiences as a person living and working with a mental health condition. The piece was later picked up by the Australian Doctor website. He wrote honestly about the effect of stigma in our society relevant to mental illness but also about the stigma that we place on ourselves when managing our own mental illness. Kieran strives for excellence in caring for his patients and in setting the best example he can for his colleagues. He actively supports his colleagues especially those junior to him and new to the complex area of Mental Health. He has offered to share his story at any forum to highlight the issues and has agreed to share his experience for Monash Voices in order to reach out to and help others. He is leading by example to his colleagues and states that living with this chronic illness has given him a greater understanding of the difficulties his patients and colleagues experience.
Exceptional Teamwork
This award is for individual, group or team who demonstrate outstanding teamwork qualities.
Winner: Child Life Therapy and Pathology teams
Leads: Amy Thomas – Head of Music, Art and Child Life Therapies and Kristy De George – Acting Director of Pathology
Nominated by Amy Thomas
The Child Life Therapy and Pathology teams are nominated for this award for their exceptional teamwork to improve the pathology round on the Monash Children’s Hospital wards to become more patient-centred and streamlined. This initiative and change in practice has required the commitment from all members of the Child Life Therapy and Pathology teams. Many children experience distress and anxiety during pathology procedures. Previously, there were no processes to effectively incorporate procedural support for the child in the pathology round on the MCH wards in a timely manner, which sometimes eventuated in distress for children, their families and staff. The new workflow includes a Child Life Therapist shadowing the Phlebotomists on the MCH wards in the mornings, offering distraction strategies and increased support during their procedures. All members of the Child Life Therapy and Pathology teams are congratulated for the work they have done to improve this service and work more inclusively as teams, which in turn significantly improves the experience of children during pathology procedures.
Excellence in Research, Teaching and Innovation
This award is for an individual, group or team who develop innovative ways to improve the quality of health care and service delivery.
Winner: Excellence in Research Support Services
Lead: Deborah Dell – Manager, Research Support Services and Human Research Ethics Committee
Nominated by Anjali Dhulia
Research at Monash Health is dynamic and exciting. At any one time, there are over 1300 studies underway across Monash Health and while they are all unique, there is one common element, it’s done with a view that the knowledge gained will lead to excellent care of our consumers. The aim of the Research Support Services team is to provide an environment where researchers are able to access advice for ethics and governance review, facilitation of ethics and governance review, advice and training on Good Clinical Research Practice, insurance and agreement advice, along with professional development opportunities.
The team of 6.9 EFT is extremely productive and effective and meets and exceeds its performance targets.
• Revenue for 2018/2019 will be in the order of $900,000
• HREC Review – Consistently ranks within 30 days and Site Authorisation within 3 days
• Since September 2018, 140 studies have put through an agreement/variation for the shared financial arrangements between Monash Health and Monash University. The value of these agreements alone is anticipated at $32M.
The next major initiative the team will be involved with is the implementation of the National Clinical Trials Governance Framework, which will see clinical trials embedded under National Standards.
Improving Care and Access
This award is for an individual, group or team that develop improved ways for patients to access and manage their care.
Winner: Healthy Mothers, Health Babies Program
Lead:Sam Challands – Program Manager, Community and Family Team and Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies
Nominated by Sam Challands
The Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies program have just celebrated their 10th Anniversary. As one of the early pilot programs in the state, they have led the way in developing this service for women experiencing vulnerability through their pregnancy. Due to the outstanding work of this service, it has now recurrently funded and expanded across the state. The Monash Health Community, Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies program has provided services to over 3,049 women in the last 10 years. The majority of referrals come from maternity services, child protection and the ADAPT program. On average women were engaged with the program for up to 9 months with 40% of the contacts provided to women who do not identify English as their primary language. If a woman is at risk they will work to get them a safe place and stay with them until they are connected to the services or shelter they need. They will work with other teams to facilitate the best outcomes for mothers and babies – making sure the services and supports are in place to keep them together.
Managing Wisely
This award is for an individual, group or team who actively look for ways to minimise waste and manage resources wisely.
Winner: Neil Sigamoney and the Distributed Service Centre Project team
Nominated by Stuart Donaldson
Monash Health has established a new Distributed Services Centre at Scoresby, bringing together Finance, Procurement and Supply Chain under one roof. This is a modern distribution services facility that can meet the needs of Monash Health for the foreseeable future. The move to Scoresby has allowed the Procurement team to rebalance and optimise the stock carried in the warehouse. This means we can deliver a better service to our wards and theatres and the other business units who depend on our warehouse. The new warehouse is 25 times the size of the old one, allowing us to increase the inventory we hold, handle it more efficiently, increase reliability and reduce response times. For the Finance team, the move to the DSC provides the ability to create a collaboration space where several parts of the business are co-located and are able to work closely. The project is an excellent example of an initiative that will transform the service quality we provide to our wards, theatres and business units.
In Pursuit of Excellence
This category recognises an individual, group or team who have personified our intent to be relentless in the pursuit of excellence.
Winner: Speech Pathology IDDSI implementation – Kathryn Potter and Audrey Price
Nominated by Simone Munro
Kathryn Potter and Audrey Price have been critical in the successful implementation of the International Dysphagia Diet Standardization Initiative (IDDSI) at Monash Health. IDDSI is an international best practice standard for diet and fluids preparation for people whom have dysphagia (difficulty swallowing). Monash Health is adopting the framework as a whole. For approximately 1 year, Audrey has been working with the kitchen team at CPK to test and provide feedback on foods prepared to meet the new criteria. Kat has coordinated the roll out of tailored education, training and support for speech pathologists, nurses and food services staff across the organization to ensure consistency of messaging and to support a positive patient and staff experience during the go live period and beyond.