Nursing & Midwifery News – August 2021

From Shane

Unfortunately all of us here at Western Health are again in the epicentre of the latest COVID-19 outbreak in Melbourne. With over 450 exposure sites listed, and the majority of them in Melbourne’s west, hundreds of our colleagues have been furloughed due to attending an exposure site.

Our commitment to maintaining a safe environment for both our staff and our patients has led to a number of rapid and extraordinary responses over the past week. We have asked all of our public facing and clinical teams to wear N95 masks and face shields to ensure that you have the best protection possible. We have actively moved to decrease our activity by limiting elective surgery to urgent cases only and going on ambulance bypass for a number of days. We thank our colleagues at other health services for their support with staffing and taking on our emergency ambulance arrivals.

The commencement of over 155 new graduates into our wards and across the COVID vaccination hub has helped significantly in decreasing the impact of the number of staff furloughed, and our vaccination centres and testing sites now have a significant number of RUSONs that are vaccinating and testing the community – allowing nurses to be prioirtised to our wards.

Through these challenging times we continue to be a source of hope for our community, with Western Health leading the vaccination efforts across the west of Melbourne. We have so far administered over 470,000 vaccines and we are having our busiest days at the moment, with over 7,400 vaccines administered in 1 day last Friday. In that true innovative can-do way, Western Health opened Australia’s first drive through COVID vaccination centre in Melton last week, and will soon be opening another drive through centre in Wyndham. We are also helping to keep on top of this outbreak through our significant testing presence throughout Melbourne’s west, and the relentless efforts of our colleagues in Infection Prevention and the Western Public Health Unit contact tracing.

I am very mindful of the impact that this latest lock-down and the unprecedented number of furloughed staff are having on us all. Please look after yourself and each other, and continue to be kind. Be meticulous when wearing your PPE, and keep an eye out for your colleagues. When you do need to leave home, please use the QR codes to check in and the daily attestation at work. If you haven’t already please get vaccinated – if not for yourself, for the ones that you love.

Finally, we spend so much time caring for others, but we cannot do this without caring for ourselves too. Please do not hesitate to reach out for help or support if you feel that you need it. I have included details of free services that are available to our nurses and midwives. A reminder that your family is also able to access our EAP service for free too.

We have got through this before, working together, with everyone playing their role in the Western Health team – and we will get through this again.

Shane Crowe
Executive Director, Nursing & Midwifery

Caring for ourselves, so we can care for others

Support is only a phone call away.

The current COVID-19 circumstances in Victoria is likely to place many nurses, midwives and students at risk of experiencing challenges with their psychological health and/or general health.

There are a number of services that are available services available to Western Health nurses and midwives:

Employee Assistance Program:

Western Health’s Employee Assistance Program is available to all Western Health staff, volunteers and their families to provide free professional support and assistance. It can be accessed by phoning 1800 099 444 – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria:

The Nursing and Midwifery Health Program Victoria (NMHPV) is available to Victorian nurses, midwives and students to access free support and assistance.

The NMHPV is an independent and confidential support service for individual nurses, midwives and students experiencing health issues related to their mental health, substance use, family violence concerns and any other issue they need support for.

In addition, NMHPV supports health service leadership, managers and people & culture personnel requiring information, advice and support for matters related to nurses and midwives experiencing any health or wellbeing concern.

The NMHPV can be reached by calling 03 9415 7551 or visiting the website www.nmhp.org.au. Staff are available Monday to Friday 8.30am to 5.00pm.

Nurse & Midwife Support:

In addition, Victorian nurses, midwives and students along with health service leadership, managers and people & culture personnel can access Nurse & Midwife Support (NMS) by calling 1800 667 877 or visiting the website www.nmsupport.org.au. NMS is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The service is anonymous confidential and free.

Please note, none of these programs are a crisis service. Colleagues with serious and imminent concerns should contact their local service or call 000. In addition, anyone can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.

Support for our midwives

In response to the current increase in birthing numbers and maternity workforce challenges experienced, the Victorian Government recently allocated $1.73 million of one-off additional funding to Western Health in 2021-22 to support an immediate uplift in the workforce capacity at Joan Kirner Women’s & Children’s and Bacchus Marsh Hospital.

The aim of the funding is to address parallel demand and workforce pressures through additional staff to improve the working environment in maternity services and ensure the maintenance of safe and high-quality services for our mothers and babies .

Sue Sweeney (Director of Midwifery Practice) and the Women’s & Children’s leadership team are working closely with our midwives to ensure that this funding is well spent and makes the greatest difference.

Priority areas include maximising roster effectiveness (taking into account fatigue management), establishing/reinforcing clear process and policies around part-time staff working additional shifts, assisting with recruitment and onboarding of new staff, and working to build casual/pool staffing capacity.

Working with midwives, we are looking at additional staff in areas of highest need, with a focus on best responding to surge pressures. This includes looking at night shift staffing levels.

Our maternity services have been so busy, and our midwives have done such an amazing job caring for our women and babies during this unprecedented demand. It is really fantastic that we have some dedicated funding to provide additional support and resources.

SHED growing and opening

Approval has recently been given to support the recruitment of additional staff for the Sunshine Hospital Emergency Department to support the provision of Best Care through the uplift of clinical services in the department to support the high levels of emergency demand.

The additional resources will allow the safe and impactful commissioning of the following new and additional clinical spaces within the department over the coming months:

• An additional 4 Treatment Assessment Rooms
• Increase in adult cubicles by 9
• Expand the Short Stay Unit by 4 beds
• Open a 15 space Adult Fast Track on morning and afternoon shifts
• Open a 4 space Paediatric Fast Track on morning and afternoon shifts
• Open the Digital Imaging Suite Ground Floor on morning and night shifts
• Open the Digital Imaging Suite 1st Floor on morning and afternoon shifts
• Open one Ultrasound Imaging Suite 1st Floor on morning and afternoon shifts

There has also been approval for managerial and other support roles to support the extensive recruitment, management and support of this significantly expanded department.

In addition, to support additional flow and timely care for our community, over the coming months an additional inpatient ward and a new 24-bed Rapid Assessment & Medical Management Unit (RAMU) will be opened at Sunshine Hospital.

This is great news for our incredibly hard working SHED team, and will help them to continue to provide Best Care to our community.

New Director of Nursing & Midwifery

On 2 August 2021 Helen Sinnott commenced in her new role as the Director of Nursing & Midwifery for the Sunshine Hospital, and supporting the Women’s & Children’s and Clinical Support & Specialist Clinics Divisions.

Helen will be well know to many of you, as she has worked at Western Health since 2017 and has most recently been the Director of Nursing & Midwifery Informatics and instrumental in the implementation of the EMR across Western Health.

Helen has also been instrumental in the COVID-19 pandemic planning, including incident management plans, ICU expansion planning, higher acuity model of care, relative enquiry line and supporting the establishment of respiratory assessment clinics whilst acting as a Director of Nursing & Midwifery in 2020.

Helen is the Deputy Chair of the Australian College of Nursing Chief Nursing Informatics Officer – Community of Interest and has published numerous papers. We wish Helen every success in her new appointment.

COVID-19 Vaccination Hub update

It has been a busy time in the COVID Vaccination Hub over the past month, with the service expanding and a number of changes.

The Western COVID Vaccination Hub is the busiest in Victoria. We have now administered over 470,000 vaccines to the community, and with the opening of our additional sites and additional cubicles we are just getting busier – currently vaccinating over 7,400 people per day.

New sites:

The Hub continues to develop innovative Outreach Services within the Western Metro Region of Melbourne. Outreach Services have started vaccinating Western Health inpatients, and we have run pop-up sites at Al Taqwa College.

In an Australian first, the Western Health Vaccination Hub opened a drive thru COVID-19 vaccination centre in Melton at the vacant Bunnings building on Barries Road. Congratulations to the entire team, including Suzie Ristevski, Lisa Smith, Kylie Roper and Jodie Antoniou (pictured right).

We have also opened a new high volume sit-down vaccination centre at the Melton site which opened last week.

In addition, the Vaccination Hub at Mercy Werribee Hospital  recommenced and the recently opened Wyndham Vaccination Hub is open 7 days per week over the lock down period and has expanded its capacity.

We are in the final stages of planning for the opening of our next drive-through vaccination centre in Wyndham, which will open over the coming weeks.

Healthcare worker vaccination:

A reminder that the Pfizer vaccine is available for first dose for all health care workers irrespective of age. Please also ensure you have your second dose of vaccine. You are not optimally protected against COVID-19 without 2 doses. Call the Victorian Coronavirus Hotline on 1800 675 398 to book your appointment or book via the online booking portal.

Changes to timing of Pfizer second dose:

From Monday 2 August all state run vaccination centres will administer the second dose of Pfizer vaccine at least six weeks after the first dose. People who already have their second Pfizer dose appointment booked, can attend their appointment as planned. This has been implemented to allow more people to receive their first dose given the current Melbourne outbreak.

Changes to eligibility:

There has been two recent significant changes to eligibility for COVID vaccination:

• From today (Monday 16 August) all State vaccination centres have expanded access to the AstraZeneca vaccine for all individuals aged 18 to 39 years.
• From Monday 9 August young people aged 12-15 who are at higher risk of severe illness if they contract COVID-19 are eligible to receive the Pfizer vaccine. These young people will be encouraged to get their vaccine at a general practice or community health service, although vaccines will be available through vaccination centres.

Women who are breastfeeding can receive either Pfizer or AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines:

• People who are currently eligible can receive a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.
• People aged 18-39 who are otherwise not eligible can choose to receive the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
• Women who are breastfeeding are not eligible to receive a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on this basis.

For the above, Bookings are to be made via the online portal or call centre on 1800 675 398.

Commonwealth reminders commencing:

The Australian Government will this week send out notifications reminding people that they are eligible. Notifications will be sent to those who registered their interest in receiving a COVID-19 vaccine and will advise and remind this group they are eligible and direct them to the Eligibility Checker to find a clinic near them.

Please note that people who have already received a COVID-19 vaccine will also receive a notification, so if you have already been vaccinated please disregard this reminder.

Moderna Vaccine approved:

The Moderna Australia’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine called Spikevax (elasomeran) has been provisionally approved by the TGA for people 18 and over.

It is recommended that the vaccine is given in two doses that are administered 28 days apart. The Commonwealth Government is planning for this new vaccine to be administered predominately via pharmacies, so it is not planned at this stage to be administered via Western Health’s COVID-19 Vaccination Hub.

Data to support the use of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years are currently under evaluation and no specific concerns have been identified to date. It is expected that the TGA’s decision on use in this age group will be announced in 3-4 weeks’ time. Read the TGA announcement.

Additional bookings, but no walk-ins:

Additional bookings have been released into the system to accommodate the additional access to the AstraZeneca vaccine and the expanded facilities. Unfortunately at the moment we are no longer accepting walk-ins for any vaccination due to the number of exposure sites in the West, to decrease queuing and promote social distancing as much as possible.

Western Health WorkSafe Award finalists

Western Health was recently announced as a finalist in the 2021 WorkSafe Awards for our Occupational Violence and Aggression awareness campaign Predict Prevent Priority: Safety.

This campaign introduced ‘Myths and Facts’ in March 2019, with the aim to challenge existing assumptions in the health care industry (perpetuated over time) that violence against health workers is something that must be tolerated, and any interventions may either harm the perpetrator (for example by refusing treatment) or exacerbate the situation.

Myths and Facts is an evidence based campaign using a series of twelve scenarios that debunk mistruths, and provide practical tools to support staff and volunteers to predict, prevent and prioritise safety.

This follows Western Health’s win at the Victorian Public Healthcare Awards 2019 for the Behaviour of Concern tool which commenced in the Emergency Departments and is now in place across all of our clinical areas.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony on 7 October 2021.

Grad+ program update

Recently Western Health asked for expressions of interest from 5 universities to be part of our new Grad+ program which is scheduled to be introduced in 2022.

This new program for graduates will have:

• 4 x 6-month rotations across 2 years, with support across both years
• Integrated free formal learning taught by Western Health, including a clinical subject and a leadership subject
• Online learning and simulated learning

The formal learning undertaken is recognised by partner universities towards post-graduate courses – making future post-graduate courses cheaper. By having 4 rotations, there will be opportunities to experience specialty areas, and hospital operations.

It was really pleasing that all 5 universities eagerly responded to the expression of interest, and so the following universities will partner with Western Health for the program:

• ACU
• Deakin
• Latrobe University
• University of Melbourne
• Victoria University

The anticipated benefits of the Grad+ Program are:

• Offer an entry to practice program that provides wider experience to different clinical specialties, to create well-rounded nurses and midwives with diverse experience in their early career years.
• Support our nurses and midwives to be able to have broader experiences and options available to them prior to choosing their preferred specialty
• Embed a culture of life-long learning through supporting the continuation of formal education into the early career years
• Make post-graduate education more accessible and affordable for our nurses and midwives
• Increase participation rates in post-graduate education, by offering 2 subjects as part of their early career years.
• Enhance Western Health’s status of an employer of choice for newly graduated nurses and midwives.

Planning is underway to develop up all elements in readiness for 2022, and we will work in partnership with all 5 universities.

Welcome to our new Vaccination Hub graduates

Welcome to our newest nursing Graduates that recently commenced in Western Health’s COVID-19 Vaccination Hub Graduate Program!

Over 155 new graduates recently commenced in the program, and will work for 6 months in one of our vaccination centres, and 6 months in another clinical ward/department.

When on Western Health wards, to start with the new graduates will be additional to our normal staffing numbers. We know that staffing has been challenging lately, so we’re sure that our wards will warmly welcome the new graduates – they will be a great help and support for our busy wards.

As part of the program as well as working within Western Health, some of the graduates will rotate to Royal Children’s Hospital, Royal Women’s Hospital and Werribee Mercy. This has facilitated the employment of as many graduate and early career nurses as possible and give these nurses a formal graduate program to ensure that they are supported to successfully transition into the profession and optimise chances of ongoing employment.

Additional clinical nurse educators have been employed to support the delivery of this program.

Falls Taskforce update

You will all be aware that falls are a major public health problem. Globally an estimated 684,000 fatal falls occur each year, making it the second leading cause of unintentional injury death, after road traffic injuries.

In 2003, the World Health Organisation projected that the cost of fall related injury in Australia by 2051 will increase almost three fold to $1,375 million per year, with an additional 1.17 million bed days per year (the equivalent of 3,300 additional beds being allocated to fall-related injury treatment).

We know that falls are an issue at Western Health. Falls that occur in hospitalised patients are among the most common incidents reported in hospitals complicating approximately 2% of all hospital stays. This is not good for anyone involved, with the impact of inpatient falls being far reaching:

For patients:

• Increased risk of repeat falls and harm
• Chronic pain/injury
• Fear of falling and resulting loss of independence
• Distress – patients and families
• Increased requirements for long term care needs

For staff and health services:

• Psychological impact on staff when patients fall in their care
• Extended LOS and cost burden

The function of the Western Health Falls Taskforce is to oversee the development of a Falls Improvement Plan. The Taskforce has undertaken a gap analysis completed against the Comprehensive Care standard, and has identified variations and trends. Recommendations have been developed following in-depth case reviews, and based on evidence based best practice from the four taskforce subcommittees that are focusing on:

• Consumer Participation
• Governance
• Equipment/Environment
• Clinical Practice Education

Additionally co-design methodology is being utilised to engage ward teams to generate strategies to ensure sustainable solutions. These strategies are supporting:

• Teams to understand own falls data
• NUMs to engaging with their leadership groups and organising leadership meetings to discuss data
• NUMs leading discussions with multidisciplinary team to build accountability and ownership, identify suggestions and ideas on how to target local issues
• Teams reviewing various internal processes including handover
• Elimination of knowledge deficits, including an EMR auditing Masterclass
• Creation of a formal role for Falls Champions on wards
• Leading a culture of Best Care

So, how are we doing? There has been some great improvements across our sites. Well done everyone! There is still a way to go, but we are well and truly heading in the right direction. For more details see below.

Benchmarking Best Care

The latest benchmark reports from the Health Roundtable that go up to March 2021 have recently been released, that show how our delivery of Best Care compares to other health services across Australasia.

In our continuing series looking at nursing and midwifery key performance indicators, this month we will look at how we perform in the area of falls.

Falls:

Sunshine Hospital

Falls resulting in a fracture or intracranial haemorrhage per 10,000 episodes of care at Sunshine Hospital have decreased by 35% in the past 12 months. This is a great result.

When compared to our peers, we are still red, so there is a way to go – however the trend downwards is really positive.

Well done to our Sunshine Hospital teams for making really positive inroads!

Footscray Hospital

What an amazing 6 months Footscray Hospital has had. You will see that 9 months ago our results for falls resulting in a fracture or intracranial haemorrhage per 10,000 episodes were really concerning. Footscray did not take this lying down, and our teams have been able to achieve a remarkable 65% reduction!

Again when compared to our peers, we remain red so there is continued work and an ongoing focus needed – however the work and effort of everyone is making a real difference!

Keep going Footscray! If this continues we will be green in no time. Congratulations to our Footscray teams for this marked improvement and commitment to keeping our patients safe.

Bec Accelerating Falls Innovation

There was significant interest in the 2021 Western Health Innovation Acceleration Program. and selection committee had the pleasure of reviewing some great ‘unmet need’ submissions that clearly defined key challenges for the healthcare sector and patients.

Bec Woltcshe (Acting ADON Inspiring Innovation) who is leading our Falls Taskforce work was successful in getting funding to support the creation our own Portable Video Monitoring kit to help reduce falls. The kit will include appropriate software, monitors, camera devices and information.

The implementation of Portable Video Monitoring in a number of wards across Western Health has already led to a significant reduction in the number of falls occurring overnight. Well done to those teams on these fantastic results!

As part of the 2021 IAP cohort, Bec will be matched with a University of Melbourne research team to devise an appropriate solution for the Portable Video Monitoring kit and will be assigned a mentor and support team to help her develop a pitch for funding to kick-start the technical development.

Congratulations Bec on your selection into the 2021 Western Health Innovation Acceleration Program cohort! We are looking forward to seeing the outcomes of you developing an innovative new solution to reduce falls.

Celebrating World Breastfeeding Week at Western

World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated annually in the first week of August. The theme for 2021 was ‘Protect breastfeeding: a shared responsibility’.

Western Health is proud to be a Baby Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) accredited health care facility, committed to protecting, promoting and supporting breastfeeding. Midwives at Joan Kirner and Bacchus Marsh are passionate about ensuring all mothers and their families receive appropriate support throughout the antenatal and postnatal period.

A week of fun and games was able to be put together by one of our specialist Lactation Consultants Jessica Huynh to celebrate and highlight World Breastfeeding Week thanks to funding from Acting Maternity Operations Manager Cara Kennedy and Women’s Ward 8. With the support of the Joan Kirner Unit Managers, Jess and the Midwifery Education team have been running educational games all week with a focus on fun and prizes! Raising awareness centred on the World Health Organisation’s 10 Steps to successful breastfeeding our midwives are dedicated to providing best care to our Women.

It was amazing to have large numbers of staff participating in “breastfeeding bingo”, “family feud” and “breastfeeding charades”. Lots of smiles and laughter filled the wards and brilliant balloons provided a backdrop for photos of staff and families alike. Families were provided with Polaroid photos having cuddles with their babies as a memento of the celebrations.

Thank you to all the staff who got involved! As we work towards Baby Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) re-accreditation in November this year, is has been wonderful to celebrate our passion for promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding at Western Health.

Stroke Week 2021 - United by Stroke

The National Stroke Week recently ran from 2-8 August with a focus on “United by Stroke” where we are encouraged to share the F.A.S.T message with our family and friends.

Stroke attacks the brain, the human control centre and with more than 27,400 Australians having had a stroke for the first time in 2020 – that is one stroke every 19 minutes.

When a stroke happens, more than 1.9 million brain cells die each minute. The longer a stroke remains untreated, the greater the chance of stroke-related brain damage.

Australians are being urged to learn and share the most common signs of stroke, F.A.S.T., this National Stroke Week. Think of the word F.A.S.T. and ask these questions if you suspect a stroke:

• Face – Check their face. Has their mouth drooped?
• Arms – Can they lift both arms?
• Speech – Is their speech slurred? Do they understand you?
• Time – Time is critical. If you see any of these signs, call triple zero (000) straight away.

Facial weakness, arm weakness and difficulty with speech are the most common symptoms or signs of stroke, but they are not the only signs.

The following signs of stroke may occur alone or in combination:

• Weakness or numbness or paralysis of the face, arm or leg on either or both sides of the body
• Difficulty speaking or understanding
• Dizziness, loss of balance or an unexplained fall
• Loss of vision, sudden blurring or decreased vision in one or both eyes
• Headache, usually severe and abrupt onset or unexplained change in the pattern of headaches
• Difficulty swallowing

Sometimes the signs disappear within a short time, such as a few minutes. When this happens, it may be a transient ischaemic attack (TIA). After a TIA, your risk of stroke is higher. Stroke can lead to death or disability. A TIA is a warning that you may have a stroke and an opportunity to prevent this from happening.

Golden Award presented to WH - Safer Care Victoria Better Births Collaborative, Perineal Tears

The Maternity Safer Care Victoria (SCV) Better Births Collaborative – Perineal Tears concluded last week with Western Health presented with the golden award for their outstanding achievements in reducing the overall incidence of perineal tears.

The introduction of the ‘Birthing Support Bundle’, which is an evidence-based clinical care bundle of interventions to reduce the incidence of perineal tears, has resulted in a reduction in the average tear rate:

• for non-instrumental births from 5.18% to 2.74%, and
• for instrumental assisted births from 8.31% to 5.12%.

Western Health is excited about the next SCV collaborative at the end of the year which will focus on the reduction of post-partum haemorrhage (PPH).

Donate Life - One Minute could save Seven Lives

Do you have one minute? You could save up to seven lives.

That’s the message from Meaghan Bruns, a DonateLife Donation Specialist Nursing Coordinator (DSNC) at Western Health.

To mark Donate Life Week 2021, which ran between 25 July and 1 August 2021, Meaghan gave us an insight into her role in helping give people a second chance at life.

“I feel so lucky to talk to the most generous and loving people, often on the worst day of their life.”

Sadly, COVID-19 has led to a decline in the number of donors, transplants and registrations. It’s more important than ever to register to become an organ and tissue donor and to let your family know that you’d like to give the gift of life upon your death.

Please take a minute to register to become an organ and tissue donor: donatelife.gov.au/register

New Aged Care COVID-19 Response and Support

We all want to prevent a repeat of the tragic events  that occurred in 2020 within residential aged care facilities at a result of the COVID-19 pandemic (pictured right).

A number of Western Health departments are working together to establish a new program that aims to prevent COVID-19 outbreaks within residential aged care facilities within our region. Dedicated Infection Prevention Clinical Nurse Consultants (CNCs) will be employed to proactively visit local residential aged care facilities, build relationships, collaboratively assess their COVID19 readiness plans, and assist the facilities to improve where required through providing professional expertise and infection prevention advice.

In the event of an outbreak they will be rapidly deployed to the residential aged care facility in outbreak and assume control of the incident response team deployed on site.

Additionally a team of PPE spotters will be employed, who can be rapidly deployed into a residential aged care facility and provide cover through a 24 hour period until such time that the outbreak is deemed to be contained. Melbourne Health will also have a similar PPE spotter team, and the 2 health services will work in partnership under the direction of Western Health’s Public Health Unit (PHU).

The concept behind this is based on learning gained throughout COVID-19 Wave 2, and the Western Health has been actively working with the Department of Health to support the initiative. We know that if staff have the correct PPE, know how to use it, have strong infection prevention practices in place and have someone double checking their PPE, outbreaks can be quickly contained and mass furloughing of residential aged care staff can be avoided.

The following departments are actively and collaboratively working on this important initiative:

• Western PHU: will coordinate and oversee the new Infection Prevention CNCs
• Nursing & Midwifery Workforce Unit: will coordinate and oversee the ‘reservist’ team of PPE Spotters
• Education & Learning: are developing best-practice learning programs for the new service, which will be able to shared with other health services in the future.
• Chronic and Complex Care: The new infection prevention CNCs will liaise closely with the Residential In-reach service, and will work in partnership to monitor the status of facilities and provide proactive, informed support.
• Infection Prevention: Are providing expertise and guidance to inform the program and will support the new CNCs from a professional perspective.

This is a great example of Western Health teams working together to protect some of the most vulnerable members of our community. This will be a pilot initiative that we hope can be replicated at other PHUs in the future.

Nursing & Midwifery Health Program Champion training

The Nursing & Midwifery Health Program Victoria has recently launched the ‘NMHP Champion Training’ program, and registrations are now open for any nurses and midwives who would like to undertake this training to become a champion.

At this stage the training is planned as an in-person event. Each date is a separate, one-day experience identical in nature, being held in Geelong and Melbourne:

Geelong 
Friday 22 October 2021, 9.30am to 4.00pm
GMHBA Stadium, Premiership Stand (Captains Room). 370 Moorabool Street, South Geelong

Melbourne
Friday 29 October 2021, 9.30am to 4.00pm
ANMF Victoria Branch, 535 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

The training day attracts 6 CPD points. You can register via the NMHP website www.nmhp.org.au/training to secure your tickets.

Construction on new Mental Health facility commences

Construction has commenced on the new mental health building which will have 52 additional acute mental health beds at Sunshine Hospital in late July.

The project will increase capacity, reduce pressure on our incredibly busy emergency departments and provide additional support for people experiencing mental illness who require immediate treatment.

The new facility will have:

• an acute mental health facility with 52 single person bedrooms with ensuites
• sensory rooms
• de-escalation rooms
• internal courtyards and enclosed garden areas
• multi-functional rooms
• spiritual rooms
• staff and family lounges
• treatment rooms.

Hopefully most of you are now aware that the new mental health facility will be built in the area currently used as Carpark 1. As a result changes to car parking arrangements particularly for our PM Shift workers have been necessary. From 28 July 2021, new road arrangements and traffic flows were established impacting the travel routes to all carparks at the rear of the site. Key changes include:

• The back of the ring road is now closed which changed the access routes to the Staff Carpark 2 and the Multi-deck Carpark.
• The roadway between the current mental health wards and the carparks has become two-way.

New signage and traffic direction is in place on-site to ensure these changes are clear as you enter and exit the site.

Once complete, the new 52-bed mental health facility at Sunshine Hospital will provide more than 18,900 days of care, enabling an estimated 1,153 more locals to access vital mental health services every year.

The new beds are a response to a key recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and will address critical demand pressures.

Free online course - Culturally Safe Care for Aboriginal People

This month VU Online launched Victoria University’s first free online short/microcourse on FutureLearn called ‘Providing Culturally Safe Care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’,

This free 4 week short course (3 hours per week) is designed to assist individuals across healthcare and beyond learn about the skills required to recognise, engage, and apply best practice approaches to provide culturally safe care. It will guide you through the cultural sensitivities, complexities, and requirements for providing excellent care to people of Indigenous Australian backgrounds.

The course starts the 13^th of September. To register please click on this link.

Sunshine Ward 1B update

To enable the continued support of the Surgical catch up, Western Health are currently progressing with the plan of opening Ward 1B at Sunshine to 20 beds with the following bed configuration;

• 10 newly funded beds (Surgical Blitz)
• 4 Gynaecology beds (Transferred from W&C’s)
• 6 beds transferred from Ward 1A

After initially opening 8 beds on Wednesday 9 June,  we have gradually built on our recruitment to this area, enabling 1B to open to 16 beds as of Tuesday 27 July.

Recruitment is progressing well with Ward 1B Nursing Leadership roles, enabling us to open up to the full 20 beds in the coming weeks. A big thank you to Monique Sammut for her leadership in progressing and supporting this work.

This has included the transfer of 4 Gynaecology beds and the associated staff from Joan Kirner Women’s and Children in order to meet the increased demand in this area. We would like to thank this team for their support in being able to make this process as seamless as possible. The new ward and team commenced on Monday 9 August.

Update to Building and Facility names in the EMR

On Wednesday 25 August 2021, Building and Facility names in the EMR will be updated to ensure greater uniformity with iPM naming conventions and prepare for EMR Phase 2.1.

These will mostly be noticeable when setting up lists and when searching for encounters in EMR.  No existing user settings (e.g patient/task lists) will be lost or affected.

Facility Descriptions – ‘WHS’ will be removed from the start of each Facility description as per the below:

For further information please contact Chris Barrington-Brown, Digital Health Functional Team Lead – christopher.barrington-brown@wh.org.au

EMR Phase 2 project update

The Western Health EMR Phase 2 project is gathering steam as workshops, demonstrations and design work continues towards enhancing the EMR to support Best Care across the health service.

Following Current State Validation in May, the EMR Phase 2 project is now into a series of eight five-week design and build sprints that will run until March 2022.

The first week of these sprints saw completion of a series of sessions reviewing and informing the design, build and validation of the new EMR functionality in the Emergency Department, Cancer Services, Perioperative/Intensive Care, Renal, Women’s and Children’s, and Outpatients clinical areas.

As part of the sessions, Cerner presented a series of “walk through” demonstrations, designed to give Western Health staff a guide to what they can expect from the expanded EMR when it is implemented.

While it was a very early look at the new system, participants noted that the reduction of the number of clinical systems used on a day to day basis and the increased ease of access to critical patient information would bring considerable benefits.

These workshops also saw design components of the enhanced EMR commence through consultation with the representatives from the areas who will use the new functionality.

Nursing & Midwifery representatives have been generous in providing their expertise and input in the process thus far and we are very grateful for their continued valuable involvement in the months ahead.

Emerging Evidence

The Western Health Library Service is a great source for locating the latest nursing and midwifery related evidence based practice and research. The COVID-19 articles below are available open access.

• Is COVID-19 the straw that broke the back of the emergency nursing workforce? Emergency Medicine Australasia. 2021: Online ahead of print Full text  (Western Health author)
• Decision fatigue among clinical nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Clinical Nursing. 2021: July Full text
• Outcomes for emergency department patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19: an analysis of the Australian experience in 2020 (COVED-5). Emergency Medicine Australasia. 2021: July 21 Full text  (Australian)
• Remote patient monitoring identifies the need for triage in patients with acute COVID-19 infection. Telemedicine and E-Health. 2021: July 22 Full text
• Characteristics of nursing homes associated with COVID-19 outbreaks and mortality among residents in Victoria, Australia. Australasian Journal on Ageing. 2021: July 19 Full text   (Australian)
• COVID-19 as a context in suicide: early insights from Victoria, Australia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. 2021: July 11 Full text  (Australian)
• COVID-19 preparedness and response plans from 106 countries: a review from a health systems resilience perspective. Health Policy and Planning. 2021: July 31 Full text
• Treatment with dry hydrogen peroxide accelerates the decay of severe acute syndrome coronavirus-2 on non-porous hard surfaces. American Journal of Infection Control. 2021: July 15 Full text
• Effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines against the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant. New England Journal of Medicine. 2021: July 21 Full text

New eBook Titles

• Pathophysiology of nursing demystified. McGraw-Hill, 2013
  If you’re looking for a fun, fast review that boils pathophysiology down to its most essential, must-know points, your search ends here! Studying is easy and effective with key objectives, important terms, brief overviews, tables and diagrams, and, NCLEX-style questions throughout the book. At the end is a comprehensive final exam that covers all the content found in Pathophysiology of Nursing Demystified.
• Pathophysiology made incredibly easy! 6^th ed. Wolters Kluwer, 2019.
  Gain confidence, with the newly updated Pathophysiology Made Incredibly Easy! Offering helpful learning aids that boost your understanding and retention, this colourfully illustrated, enjoyable text offers all the vitals: cell development, the infection process, cancer warning signs, abnormal cell growth, and more. Packed with easy-to-remember definitions and plentiful illustrations, this supportive guide is the ideal study partner and on-the-job reference for new nurses, students, and all healthcare practitioners.

Please note: these eBook title links (on-site) should take you seamlessly to the full text of the eBook. Off-site or home access requires free library membership. If you are not a member you can Join Online. For more information Click on our FAQ page.

Visit the library’s Intranet website, or ring the library to speak with a Librarian: 83958036 or 83456655. Working from home? Visit the Library Internet site.