Spirit of Safety and Quality Award winners!

1 Dec 2023

Allied Health Dieticians – Preeti Chauhan, Shona Vigus, and Fernanda FunoyPuente

The Spirit of Quality and Safety Award recognises the importance of continuous quality improvement and aims to acknowledge achievements in excellence and innovation in clinical care, organisation-wide practice, and service delivery.

The award provides teams with an opportunity to share patient-centred innovations and communicate their quality improvement achievements with other departments.

All areas of the hospital were invited to share team-based improvements that demonstrated an increased awareness and application of principles producing better standards. 

Entries were assessed against the following criteria:

• Evidence of culture of effective leadership.
• Demonstrated evidence of improvement or innovation in team culture.
• Demonstrated continuous improvement and evidence of outcomes.
• Demonstrated use of best practice. 
• Demonstrated improvement in safety and/or quality of care.
• Improvement and innovation that significantly improved patient experience. 

A total of nine entries were received from clinical and non-clinical areas, and these submissions were assessed by a panel consisting of Rochelle Ruse (Acting DDON IS and Learning and Development Coordinator), Steve Edmondston (Research Operations Manager), and Ireen Villarias (Acting Manager Quality and Risk).

The calibre of the submissions made judging these initiatives particularly challenging. However, after much deliberation a decision was reached by the judging panel. Two initiatives were particularly exceptional, and so this year, there were two departments who each received a team prize of $500.

The first department was Allied Health for their quality improvement initiative of “Gestational Diabetes Education Service Improvement”. This was as a response to concerns in relation to wait times for diabetes education and management for pregnant women. This initiative involved the development of a new referral form and pathway, renewed focus on education sessions, improved process for tracking referrals and “closing the loop” of communication with obstetricians. The initiative has resulted in a significant reduction in time from referral to review, increased access to online education, increase in timely management of gestational diabetes, increase in referral rates from VMOs, improved patient experience, and continuity of care.

The second department to be recognised was St Francis for their quality improvement initiative “Five for Thrive”. The team on St Francis started this with a goal to get every nurse to take their breaks and get home on time. They established a process that provided a transparent and fair workload to improve nurse satisfaction and well-being. The main aim was to build a safer work culture and mindfully connect with their patients. Their submission demonstrated clear evidence of consumer focus and team work. This initiative resulted in an improvement in patient experience as evidence by their Net Promotor Score (NPS) and Australian Hospital Patient Experience Question Set (AHPEQS) trends. Caregivers also commented on how the initiative improved communication amongst the team and overall improvement in their working environment.

Manager Quality and Risk Ireen Villarias with Nurse Unit Manager St Francis Ward Irene Pienaar

Deputy Director of Nursing (Specialty Services) Kimberley Montgomery said she was impressed with the calibre of the submissions as caregivers displayed their quality initiatives to make the hospital safer for everyone.

“Personally, it was such a joy to see the awards re-launched this year with the calibre of the submissions outstanding,” she said.

“The awards provide a fantastic opportunity to showcase the wonderful work our caregivers are doing in improving patient safety and quality of care.

“There is such fantastic work being done by our caregivers to improve patient safety and quality of care. All teams should be really proud of their work and the improvements they have made!”

The Spirit of Safety and Quality Award takes place every two years, with the next winner slated to be crowned in 2025.