At today’s employee forum, Chief Executive Andrew Stripp awarded the first STAR Award for Q4 2021 for Outstanding Care or Service Delivery.
This category recognises an individual, group or team who achieves excellent results in their key performance areas, delivers a consistently high-quality service or establishes a pattern of continuous performance improvement.
The winner in this category is Jodie Kramer, Senior Social Worker and ICU Social Worker who works within the bed based social work team at Monash Medical Centre.
Recently, Jodie was caring for a patient admitted to ICU very unwell with COVID-19. Jodie identified that the patient had two young kids in the care of her elderly mother.
There were concerns that the children were also COVID positive and posed a risk if their grandmother was to become unwell and unable to care for them.
Jodie immediately began talks with the patient, the mother and neighbours to develop a future care plan for her children if the patient and grandmother were temporarily unable to care for the kids.
Furthermore, Jodie promptly initiated COVID-19 testing at home for the family.
Shortly after, the patient’s mother became unwell and required inpatient admission, leaving the children without a present caregiver.
With support from her colleagues, Jodie utilised her advanced crisis intervention skills to facilitate rapid discussions with the Ambulance Victoria COVID team and COVID Kids Ward at LaTrobe Hospital to arrange appropriate care for the children.
The children were admitted to the COVID Kids ward, where they stayed for over three weeks while their mother and grandmother were in hospital. Jodie worked closely with the team there to connect the children with their mother and grandmother during this time to support their emotional wellbeing.
This case is one of many examples where Jodie has demonstrated her exceptional social work skills, patient-centred care and her ability to navigate complex systems to ensure our patients and their families get the best care possible.
When asked how receiving this award made her feel, Jodie shared that she was honoured to be recognised by her colleagues and the case highlighted great collaboration and how the system can work well together.
“I feel very honoured to be receiving this award. This case was one that has really stuck with me during COVID and highlighted how positive working relationships, escalation pathways and inter-agency collaboration can lead to better patient and family outcomes.
“I would like to acknowledge my social work colleagues, the social work management team led by Jacinta Re, and the external agencies involved including Ambulance Victoria and the COVID Kids Clinic at LaTrobe Hospital.”
Thank you Jodie, your ongoing contribution to the social work team and to Monash Health has been recognised by your colleagues and greatly appreciated.
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, visit the Monash Health COVID-19 website.
Approved by Karen Lowe.