NSW Health WSLHD Safety & Quality Account 2020-21

A workplace culture that drives safety and quality

Excellence in Aboriginal Healthcare - Support for Aboriginal people program (SAP) The Support for Aboriginal People Program, or SAP, is delivered by the Community Aboriginal Mental Health Team. This program aims to engage Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people living in Western Sydney with mental health and wellbeing issues or psychosocial distress. The program is designed to increase mental health support in the community, mental health literacy and to provide a holistic view on mental health by working from a social and emotional wellbeing model. The program saw increased engagement of Aboriginal people with mental health services and aims to decrease mental health presentations to ED. The team continues to provide this ongoing support to the Aboriginal community in western Sydney.

The team behind Baby Steps, including clinical midwifery consultant Helen Mou (middle), and Innovation & Redesign project lead Julianne Harvey (held photo, middle).

Peak Awards Chair of the WSLHD Board Award -Baby Steps Baby Steps aimed to reduce risk and promote a positive pregnancy by providing timely access to antenatal care at Auburn Hospital. Using the Centre for Healthcare’s Redesign Methodology and partnering with consumers, solutions targeted more efficient referral, bookings and documents management and improved communication. Key outcomes include a more streamlined antenatal service aligned to recommended practice guidelines, 720 appointments freed up per annum (+$132K revenue), referral completion rate increase from 40% to 83%, 43% reduction in demand to see a doctor, referral registration increase from 4% to 100% and two thirds of women commencing antenatal care by 18 weeks gestation (baseline 21 weeks). Nathan Moore was awarded the Chief Executive award for the outstanding work in the innovation of the ALS-SimVR education delivery project. ALS-SimVR was developed in collaboration between WSLHD Research and Education Network, University of Sydney and Frameless Interactive. The Virtual Reality based application was developed to supplement clinician training in vital Advanced Life Support Management skills. It allows clinicians to practice managing a virtual patient in a cardiac arrest and associated skills in an immersive virtual environment at the time and place of their choosing. If you would like to read more, please visit ALS-SimVR WSLHD Chief Executive Award -ALS-SimVR: ALS Team leader training in VR

Excellence in the provision of Mental Health Services - EPIC – Emergency Psychiatric Interactive Conferencing (WSLHD nomination for the 2021 NSW Health Awards – Excellence in the provision of Mental Health Services) health teleconferencing service developed in collaboration between the Blacktown Acute Care Team (BACT), Mount Druitt Emergency Department (ED), Drug Health Services and Peer Supported Transfer of Care (STOC) as an alternative to providing face-to-face care during the pandemic. EPIC was delivered to 25% of consumers presenting for a mental health assessment at Mount Druitt ED since December 2020. The service is cost-effective and showed significant improvement in access to specialty health care for consumers, improved patient flow, consumer and staff satisfaction and reduced mental health related ED length of stay by 4.6 hours. EPIC will continue to be delivered at Mount Druitt ED supporting the seamless transfer of care between the ED, inpatient units and the community. EPIC team. Left to right: Rizvan Patel, Helene Rice and Nirav Thakker The Emergency Psychiatric Interactive Conferencing (EPIC) project is a mental

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