Country Scrubs Rural Skills Weekend - West Coast District Health ...

The Westerly
“Te Hauauru”
The staff newsletter of the West Coast District Health Board
September 2010
UT $4.50 ET $5.00
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Country 00000 Scrubs
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Rural Skills Weekend

Director of Nursing and Midwifery
becomes Ministry of Health Chief Nurse
Alison McDougall, Patient Journey Improvement Coordinator;
Louise McLean, PA to Director of Nursing,
Jane O’Malley and Karyn Kelly.
Physiotherapists meet changing Health Needs
Physiotherapists make enormous
contributions to meeting the health
needs of an ageing population.
Diabetes, obesity, stroke, heart and
lung problems are on the increase
and not just in older people. The
demands on the New Zealand
health system are predicted to double
over the next 10 years.
Physiotherapists’ contribution is by
providing assessment, education
and treatments that are proven to
be effective for the patients’ rehabilitation
as well as being cost
effective (in comparison to the cost
West Coast DHB Director of Nursing and Midwifery, Dr Jane
O’Malley, has recently left the Coast to take up a new position
as Chief Nurse with the Ministry of Health in Wellington.
The appointment is high recognition for the qualities that Jane
displays and comes after an extensive international and national
recruitment process.
“Jane’s academic experience and commitment to developing
the nursing profession provides a sound platform for her to
provide leadership to nurses throughout New Zealand,” said
Deputy Director-General of Sector Capability and Innovation,
Margie Apa.
Jane has been Director of Nursing and Midwifery at the West
Coast DHB since November 2005 and as well as be a staunch
advocate for nursing has had an important role in such strategic
initiatives as the Sustainability project, Safe Staffing Health
Workplace and the Integrated Family Health Centre proposal.
Karyn Kelly will take up the position as acting DONM until
such time as a permanent replacement is appointed.
Karyn has had a long history with the West Coast DHB starting
as a new graduate in 1991. In the intervening years, apart
from a short time working in community services in England
and Hokitika and taking parental leave, Karyn has worked
around most of the base hospital secondary services at Greymouth as a staff nurse, clinical nurse specialist and
occupational health nurse.
Karyn has been with the Department of Nursing and Midwifery since August 2008 and was formerly the Associate
Director of Nursing Clinical Practice Development.
of drugs and surgery).
We are all aware of the evidence,
that being active prevents or improves
many long term diseases
and makes a huge difference to
the populations’ health and sense
of well-being. However if a person
is unfit, older or has a chronic disease
or disability, then this activity
has to be introduced carefully.
Physiotherapists are highly qualified
health professionals who
assess and recommend exercise
plans that are safe and appropriate
for that individual while also providing
education about looking for
signs of trouble.
Physiotherapists consider the total
health of each patient.
Physiotherapists are the experts in
all aspects of physical rehabilitation.
Physiotherapists are adaptable,
flexible and focused on meeting
the challenge.
Adapted from Gill Stotter, President
Physiotherapy New Zealand

By now eligible voters for the local body elections
should have received their voting papers in the mail.
Please note there are two types of vote on the electoral
paper.
Voting for the local district council, the West Coast
Regional Council and Development West Coast is on a
First Past the Post system where you need to place a
tick beside the candidate of your choice.
Voting for the District Health Board uses the Single
Transferable Voting (STV) system where you need to
rank the candidates by putting a number beside their
name, where 1 is your most preferred candidate, 2 is
the second most preferred, and so on. Do not put ticks
against candidate names for the DHB election.
Your votes need to reach the electoral Officer by midday
9 October 2010. If you intend posting your votes
then they should be posted no later than Wednesday 6
October if they are to arrive in time to be counted.
535 Years
Come along and support West Coast Children with a walk around the floodwall
(2.5 km) and contribute to the Fresh Future Appeal
Spot Prizes
Sausage Sizzle
Entries available from , Victoria’s and Greymouth Fresh Choice,
Grey Base Hospital - Parfitt ward, McBrearty ward and reception
Recently staff at the Hokitika Health
Centre celebrated receptionist Andrea
Beecroft reaching the milestone
of thirty years working for the West
Coast DHB. Andrea had worked
previously at Seaview Hospital
before commencing at the Health
Centre.
During discussions amongst staff
it became evident the majority of
staff employed at the health centre
had worked for the DHB for a long
period of time. Staff completed a
graph recording each member's
year's of service with the combined
total of 535 loyal years.
The longest serving employee was
Cheryle Hutchinson with a total of
43 years with the average length of
employment being 20.5 years. To
acknowledge and celebrate Andrea's
and staff's loyalty to the DHB
a shared lunch was held.
Some of the staff who attended the
celebration: Back - Wendy Stuart
(receptionist); Andrea Beecroft
(receptionist); Nola Rochford
(District Manager WCMH); Jane
Hutchinson (field worker); Judy
Nicol (CMHN);Donna Cameron
(CMHN); Peter Campion (Rehab
Nurse); Front: Terry Guilder (Forsenic
Nurse); Carlene Packham
(Practice Nurse); Mere Wallace
(Social Worker) and Jenny Gribben
(receptionist)

Greymouth Medical Centre achieves
Cornerstone accreditation
Staff at Greymouth Medical
Centre admire their accreditation
certificate achieved after a lot of
hard work at the practice.
From left:- Dr Carol Atmore,
Cheryl Creagh, Meriem Wilson,
Dr Zoe Hart (Quality lead), Dr
Jenny Spring, Dr Emma Boddington,
Vicky O’Neill, Rae Woolhouse,
Andrea Smith and Clair
Hessey.
Primary mental health website
Workers in the primary mental
health sector who are looking for
a one stop source of information
should check out the new version
of the Ministry of Health’s
primary mental health website
www.primarymentalhealth.org.nz.
The new look website, which was
launched at the beginning of September,
is intended to be a repository
of information and tools that
will encourage sector innovation.
It is now more interactive and has
a number of new features. Users
are now able to post and comment
on primary mental health news,
documents and literature. There
is now a national contact directory
that users can add themselves to.
And users can now share innovative
projects they are working on
with the rest of the primary mental
health sector.
Mental Health Programme Development
team leader Nemu Lallu
believes the new version of the
website will help primary mental
health workers, who don’t have
time to scour the web for research,
but want to learn about what the
rest of the sector is doing.
“Feedback I’ve received has
indicated the sector’s need for a
central repository of primary mental
health information. A national
contact directory is something the
workforce would find particularly
useful. This will support clinicians
providing mental health services
to share learning and knowledge.”
“The new version of the website
allows workers to quickly and easily
add themselves to a national
workforce directory, and provides
them with useful and relevant
news and literature on developments
in primary mental health.”
“We hope that this will help to
stimulate the spread of innovative
practice across the sector.”
Because the new version of the
website is part of the Health, Innovation
and Improvement Research
Centre, or HIIRC (www.
hiirc.org.nz), new content can be
easily and quickly uploaded by
anyone. A virtual meeting room
(available now at HIIRC) may be
added in the future. This feature
allows people in different parts
of the country to set up an online
meeting, with the option of communicating
via a webcam and
microphone, and even conduct
a Powerpoint presentation. The
new version of the website retains
all the useful content from the old
website, such as the popular national
list of primary mental health
services.
Professor Bruce Arroll, Head of
Department and Elaine Gurr Chair
in General Practice at the University
of Auckland, notes that the
new look website gathers information
from a wide range of sources
and provides an opportunity for
interaction.
“It is particularly good to see news
of research and primary health organisation
initiatives as there is a
lot of good work going on that can
be missed by others who would
be interested”
“I think it will become a valuable
cornerstone for primary mental
health.”

Safe Staffing Healthy Workplaces
The Safe Staffing Healthy
Workplaces initiative was set up
as a result of the NZNO MECA
to improve the matching of
resources between clincial need
and staffing requirement. As a
result of this initiative there has
been a significant improvement
in productivity at Grey Base
Hospital.
The end result is improved
management of the inpatient
bed capacity and as a result
delivering on two important
government targets; the elective
surgical waiting list and ED
waiting times.
The overall aim of the project was
to ensure the right people are in
the right place at the right time in
order to meet patient care needs.
Operating beyond our capacity
(a peak) or well below capacity
(a trough) creates risk or waste.
The aim is to work with a whole
of system approach to better
smooth the peaks and troughs.
This factor is critical in a small
rural DHB where there are less
staff available at any one time to
manage extremes of demand for
care.
A focus in hospital services has
been making the connection
between the things we can
control (elective surgical activity)
and the things we can predict will
happen (winter acute admission
peaks, school and other holidays,
planned annual and study leave
etc) to better match all the work
across the systems. This will
result in an annual plan and a
process for ongoing review and
refinement six weeks out, one
week out and on the day. The
work focused on developing
improved care capacity
management (the ability of a
service to provide patients with
care; not only at any one time
but also across a whole year and
smooth the peaks and troughs
where possible).
Hospital services have reviewed the
way we do capacity planning and
management and have developed
a picture of what needs to be
improved to better predict and
manage the work.
A series of educational workshops
with Planning and Funding,
Finance, Central Booking Unit,
medical, nursing and allied health
staff as well as those responsible
for rosters, OPD and OT scheduling
have been held and a draft template
for presenting historical and
prospective data to assist planning
and managing has been agreed.
The clinical, support and
management team at Grey Base
Hospital have worked together
to develop a template for using
historical and future projected
patient referrals data to assist
planning and managing the
operating waiting list and at the
same time ensure the hospital
has enough beds to receive acute
admissions. The tool has been
developed and refined and is in use
as part of the early implementation
phase to manage the 2010/11
contracts.
Alison McDougall, process
improvement coordinator, will
continue to work with the team
during the first few months of the
use of the new tool.
Improved rostering and matching
nursing and midwifery staff
to patient requirements using
TrendCare: A key aspect of patient
and staff safety is making sure the
right people are in the right place at
the right time.
Robust rostering is an important
component of the capacity planning
and management work and over
the past six months many of the
clinical staffing groups are now on
an electronic rostering system at
the Base Hospital.
TrendCare, a patient acuity tool,
provides the facility to better
predict patterns of nursing clinical
hours required to provide patient
care and, in turn, refine the staffing
requirement in the wards.
The roll-out of TrendCare to Buller
and Reefton commenced in mid
July under the leadership of Clinical
Services Manager Barbara Smith.
In Greymouth, Nurse Manager
Michele Coghlan and the nursing
and midwifery clinical leaders are
developing confidence in reading
and analysing the data. They can
see the considerable variance
and as the care capacity system
delivers a more predictable and
smoothed entry of patients into the
system they will be able to utilise
the TrendCare data to improve
matching staff and managing
workload.
The core components are in
place: first a draft roster policy
which will provide a template for
roster integrity; secondly the care
capacity reporting against annual,
quarterly, monthly and weekly
targets and thirdly, annual or more
regular variance plan reviews.
In addition, should an unsafe
incident occur, a review process
that tests the three components,
variance management, capacity
management and rostering
against some simple questions
has been developed and trialled.
The incident review (which can
be used with the current WCDHB
incident review process) asks
how the three components work
together.

Rural Skills Weekend for Medical Students
Country Scrubs is the Rural Health
Interest Group at the Christchurch
School of Medicine. This group
aims to promote and encourage
medical and nursing students to
consider careers in rural health,
as well as making them aware
of current rural health issues.
This is achieved through fun and
educational events.
The Rural Skills weekend aims
to foster interest and educate
students in both rural and wilderness
medicine, in particular
emergency medicine scenarios in
the outdoors.
This year’s Rural Skills weekend
began by travelling to Greymouth
on Friday 2nd July. Saturday
began with an interesting presentation
by Greville Wood about the
near world-wide elimination of Polio
following the introduction of the
vaccine. Following this presentation,
students undertook a tour of
Grey Base Hospital and proceeded
to learn the skill of plastering.
The students found this extremely
enjoyable and educational.
The trip then moved to Arthurs
Pass where the students stayed at
the Arthurs Pass Outdoor Education
Lodge.
Four emergency scenarios were
set up to consolidate previous
skills and learn a multitude of new
ones. The first of these four scenarios
consisted of a tramper with
full thickness burns to the hand,
which required students to manage
and put in place preventative
measures for hypothermia.
The second scenario required
the extraction a passenger from a
car using a board. This scenario
taught the students the skills of
C-spine stabilisation and effective
manipulation of the interior of a
car to manoeuvre the patient out
the rear exit.
A hypothermic patient was the
centre of the third scenario. Students
were required to use their
basic tramping equipment to keep
the patient warm, as well as attending
to an ankle injury.
The fourth scenario was the most
challenging. Students were required
to extract a climber from
difficult terrain, transfer him onto a
board and manoeuvre him down a
steep hill.
The students really appreciated
these scenarios enjoying the
opportunity to learn and put into
practice new skills.
The input of the volunteers was
invaluable to the running of this
weekend with many giving up a
large proportion of their weekend
to teach the students.
The interaction between local
medical professionals, local businesses,
valued community members
and the students provides
a fun and inviting environment to
learn new skills.
The weekend also exposes students
to many of the skills that
they would need if they are considering
working in rural healtha
nd perhaps encourage them to
follow this career path.
The Country Scrubs Annual Rural
Skills Weekend would not have
been able to proceed without
the generosity from our sponsors.
Solid Energy, West Coast
DHB and Westland Milk Products
gave generous funding to ensure
our weekend could run to a high
standard with adequate resourcing.
We thank you very much for
this opportunity.
On behalf of all those who participated
in the Country Scrubs Rural
Weekend, the students would like
to thank everyone who helped in
this weekend.
The amazing support and dedication
from all involved provides
valuable encouragement for
students to pursue careers in rural
health. It is to be hoped that the
West Coast will see a number of
those participating in the weekend
at some stage of their professional
lives.