Health service outlines major goals
An electrotonic medical records system, increasing diversity and numbers of staff and expanding clinical care are three major goals of Grampians Health for 2023.
The health service released a ‘12 months on’ report at its annual general meeting in February, which outlined the organisation’s previous achievements and future priorities.
Grampians Health was formed on November 1, 2021 following the amalgamation of Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital, Stawell Regional Health, Ballarat Health Services and Wimmera Health Care Group.
Grampians Health chief executive Dale Fraser said the organisation’s clinical services plan would provide a pathway for growth and improvement in 2023.
“We started a new program in Ballarat last year giving people an ability to have chemotherapy at home and there have been 105 patients who have used that service,” he said.
“This year we are rolling that option out to our cancer services at Maryborough, Stawell and Horsham – it doesn’t replace on-site care, it’s an addition, so if a patient wants to have care at home, they can.”
Last year Grampians Health submitted to develop an electronic medical record.
“It’s game-changing in clinical safety as it allows doctors to have real-time electronic access to clinical information about a patient’s care,” he said.
“At the moment, a lot of that is done on paper – the doctors have to go searching through many pages to find what treatment someone had because not everyone remembers their treatments and medications in detail.
“The Grampians region will be one of the last in the state to have an electronic medical record, so we’ve worked with all the hospitals in the region to put a submission in.
“We’re asking for about $100million in funding over four to five years to install and run the program.”
Mr Fraser said another focus in 2023 was tackling workforce shortages.
“We have vacancies we are trying to fill and everyone is competing for the same limited resource – staff,” he said.
“It adds extra strain and stress onto staff who might be going above and beyond the call of duty to meet service expectations of consumers.
“We’ve done lots of work on continuing to grow our workforce, and also to make sure staff are safe, have the right skills and we are an inclusive workplace.
“This year we will work on continuing opportunities for staff to share and train and learn from other staff within the group.
“A good thing we have because of the amalgamation is a bigger clinical mass that we can lean into, so in the past 12 months, we have recruited 108 people from overseas.
“With our overseas recruitment program, we will continue extolling the full benefits of the region to be able to recruit staff, no matter what type of location they want.”
Optimistic
Mr Fraser said it would be a tough year ahead, but the organisation was optimistic about the potential to go from strength to strength.
“All the things we are improving, or including, are in addition to being open seven days a week, 365 days a year, doing 12,000 surgeries, delivering 1700 babies and looking after 600 nursing home residents as part of our day job,” he said.
Grampians Health board chair Bill Brown said since its formation, the health service had provided ‘exemplary’ care to the community.
“COVID has caused substantial challenges to how we have delivered our services and placed incredible pressure on our workforce,” he said.
“It will take a considerable period of time to return to ‘normal’ operations, but we have already begun this journey.
“Over the course of the next 12 months we will continue to drive the opportunities we now have available to us, as one of the largest regional health services in Australia.
“Our focus will continue to be centred around increasing accessibility of care for our community, sustaining and growing our workforce and being a valued collaborator and partner across the Grampians region.”
Mr Fraser said some of the biggest successes of the past 12 months were thousands of staff members taking up training programs and the development of strategic and clinical services plans.
“We’ve focused on trying to create a future-ready workforce and create the opportunities for local people to learn and train locally without having to leave their local environment or choose not to work in health altogether,” he said.
“We also did a lot of preparative work to see what the future demand needs are and how we come up against that future need.”
Mr Fraser said it enabled the service to prioritise growth in areas such as child dental in Edenhope and outpatient maternity in Horsham.
“We’ve seen roughly 30 to 40 extra people in Horsham since opening the outpatient maternity clinic,” he said.
Mr Fraser said COVID was a major disrupter for health and the organisation was vigilant to the care needs of staff and community during the past 12 months.
“Staff are understandably fatigued,” he said.
“I think we’re starting to see COVID more normalised in our space – masks are still a requirement in hospitals and after staff have done a full eight or 10hour shift in an N-95 mask, it’s pretty wearing on them.
“It remains a substantial challenge, but I look forward to seeing through 2023 the continued normalisation of COVID and hope we can get back to a 100 percent focus on service delivery as opposed to a large focus on COVID.”