No Images? Click here Chris Fleming appointed new Chief Executive Welcome from Commissioner Kathy Grant It's my pleasure to begin the first Owning Our Future newsletter for 2017 by welcoming Chris Fleming who recently accepted the role of Chief Executive at Southern DHB. Through an extensive process, Chris demonstrated that he was the strongest candidate for this position. He brings proven experience from DHB chief executive roles, at both Nelson Marlborough Health and South Canterbury DHB, where he has overseen significant organisational change. He has also worked in financial and operational roles at three further New Zealand DHBs, as well as in Canada and Australia, developing a wide range of skills and experiences that will make an important contribution to Southern DHB. Since joining us as interim Chief Executive last September, Chris has already made a significant contribution at Southern DHB, building on his strong networks and familiarity with the sector. With Chris’s appointment this momentum can continue, and I have every confidence that with the support of staff and the community, he can lead Southern DHB towards becoming stronger, more sustainable and better able to meet the health needs of our communities. A word from the Chief Executive Chris FlemingI’m excited to have been given the privilege of serving as Southern DHB’s Chief Executive Officer. The last few months as interim Chief Executive has been both challenging and enjoyable, and I look forward to the coming years as I commit longer term to the Southern community. This will include further progress of the Dunedin Hospital redevelopment, implementing sustainable models of care, continuing to improve our performance against health targets, care closer to home, and ensuring that we learn to live within our financial means. Central to all of these challenges is the ‘Southern Future’ work and the values and behaviours developed by more than 3,500 patients, staff and whānau. What I have already seen are committed, competent and caring staff and health providers who want the best for their patients and our community. Although we have huge challenges ahead, I’m confident that we are making real progress, creating a quality and patient-focused health system while achieving clinical and financial sustainability. I’ve been warmly welcomed by staff, patients and the community. Having had the opportunity to travel the district has brought a sense of how large and diverse an area the Southern district actually is, and the ongoing work we have to do to provide care closer to home for our patients. I look forward to meeting you all and sharing more about our plans and progress over the coming months. Kaumatua for Dunedin HospitalWe were delighted to welcome Matapura Ellison to the DHB as Kaumatua based at Dunedin Hospital at a mihi whakatau at Wakari Hospital on 7 February. Matapura is part of the Māori Health Directorate leadership team. His position is of a resource, advisory and consultative nature, as well as strengthening connections to the communities throughout the Otago catchment. We are confident that Matapura, with his strong community connections, will be instrumental in helping us to improve Māori access to healthcare services. Matapura’s appointment complements the Southland-based Kaumātua position held by Mohi Timoko. There is a wide range of work being done targeted at improving health services for Māori and eliminating inequalities through the Southern Māori Health Plan by using a whole of health system approach. We are pleased to be seeing measurable improvements, including higher immunisations rates among Māori tamariki, a greater percentage of whom are fully vaccinated at aged two and five years than for the population as a whole. Staff Engagement Survey – 'My Voice – Our Future'Our Staff Engagement Survey 'My Voice – Our Future' was launched on 13 February. The survey aims to build on our values and behaviours as we continue on our Southern Future journey, and we strongly encourage everyone to participate. More staff completing the survey will give us more meaningful results. In keeping with our organisational values we will be making the results available widely and will be open about the actions proposed to help address any issues that are identified. The outcomes and actions will make your work experience better, and contribute to better patient care. Ultimately we want to make Southern DHB the best place to work and this survey is an opportunity to ensure your voice is heard and to help shape our future. We urge you to complete this because without your feedback we can’t identify issues and we can’t address them. Comprehensive information about the survey can be found on Pulse including the types of questions, how the results are collated, the feedback mechanism and FAQs. There’s even the chance to win one of five double movie vouchers! Quality Account Some of the excellent work our staff have carried out over the past year, together with some of our plans for the next year, is showcased in the 2015/16 Quality Account launched last month. The Account is produced annually to report to the community on the DHB’s performance from a quality and safety perspective. Among the highlights are improved performance against national health targets, progress in developing a values-based culture, and a comprehensive patient safety programme. Over the past year, the Southern Future programme has been integral to our work in this area, drawing on evidence that when patient and staff experiences improves, so too does quality, safety and productivity. We are also pleased to see progress in a range of initiatives, including processes for managing delirium and falls prevention both in hospital and at home. This work has been supported by the teams and systems that promote ongoing quality improvement at the DHB, including the Quality and Patient Safety team, and the Performance team who run the “Skills for Change” and “Innovate” programmes to support staff to bring their innovative ideas to life. The Account also addresses the learnings from the serious adverse events that have occurred at the DHB, including steps to improve clinical processes, supported by strengthened IT systems. Quality and safety is our highest priority, and the responsibility of everyone within the DHB. We congratulate all our teams on their efforts in this area, and look forward to building on these initiatives further to provide the best possible care for our community. Please take some time to view the 2015/2016 Quality Account and read about the excellent work at the DHB over the past year.
Planning is continuing on the redevelopments of Dunedin Hospital, and we are pleased to provide a further opportunity to update our staff and the community on this project. Please join us tomorrow, Tuesday 28 February - this is your opportunity to learn more about this exciting development, and ask questions of the project team. Staff forum, 12pm, 71 Frederick St (Corner Cumberland St) Public forum,
6pm, Hutton Theatre, Otago Museum Lakes District Hospital update Preliminary concept design for the upgrade of Lakes Hospital is underway, following the appointment of RCP Project Management as project managers by Southern DHB in December last year. RCP has significant experience working in healthcare and with district health boards across New Zealand and we’re looking forward to seeing progress in bringing the hospital to a contemporary standard and ensuring the hospital meets the community’s needs over the next decade. Progress in addressing ophthalmology waiting lists We are pleased to update you that significant progress has been made in addressing the long wait times a large number of our patients have been experiencing in our ophthalmology service. Our plan for addressing the issues within the service is based on two phases. This first is to decrease the number of patients overdue for a follow up appointment to as close to zero as practical by end of June 2017. Locum ophthalmologists have been in place and working since early December to increase the capacity within the service. This has involved seven doctors in total, with at least one and on most weeks two doctors working in addition to our usual workforce. These efforts are resulting in a reduction of overdue patients, from approximately 4,600 patients in October 2016 to 3,700 at the end of January 2017. The second phase is to ensure the service is sustainable on an ongoing basis. Recruitment is currently underway for a consultant ophthalmologist, and in-house optometrist positions. We are also developing our skilled nursing workforce to become avastin injectors and utilising optometrists where possible, both in house and in the community. An external review of the ophthalmology service was started in December, with the final report due in the first quarter of 2017. While the steps already put in place to address the service issues appear to be effective, we want to ensure we have learned as much as possible from this situation and will consider any recommendations the reviewers may make to further improve this service. Again, we apologise for the delays our patients have experienced, and we thank everyone involved in working to address this situation. Junior Doctors strike The national residential doctors’ association strike last month brought some challenges to the New Year. The professionalism and teamwork of our staff meant that we continued to provide healthcare services in less than ideal conditions with the support of our colleagues in primary care, St John Ambulance and other allied health agencies. This strike action continues to impact the DHB especially the hundreds of appointments and procedures that had to be postponed and required rescheduling. Thank you to all our committed staff for making an extra effort to help patients get the care they need. Thank you all again for your hard work. Radiology Systems update Helping ensure patients have better access to high-tech imaging throughout the Southern district was at the centre of a successful workshop held at Dunstan Hospital recently. Representatives from primary care, radiology services, rural hospitals and the private sector, gathered for a half-day workshop to help design a proposed district-wide referral management system for CT, MRI and ultrasound. Discussions focused on how non-acute referrals are currently handled – from receipt through triage, allocation, scheduling and reporting of results – and how a SPOE (single point of entry) pathway might be configured. “It was a very positive and productive session and valuable information was provided by participants during the workshop,” explained Elaine Chisnall, Southern DHB, General Manager, Women’s Children’s and Public Health and Support Directorate. “Regardless of their role in healthcare or where they work, everyone who participated was committed to keeping patients and patient needs at the centre of the discussion.” The co-design workshop is a work stream of the Radiology System Project. This Souther DHB initiative, which got underway in October 2015, aims to provide patients and clinicians with timely access to high-tech imaging, in the right location, while making optimal use of all equipment and resources. Input gathered at the workshop, as well as from a series of discussion forums held across the district at the end of last year, will be drafted into a proposed framework document and shared with stakeholders in the coming weeks and circulated to seek further feedback.
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