Monday 10 November 2014: Celebrating excellence at the Canterbury Health System Quality Improvement and Innovation Awards I was thrilled to be part of the award ceremony held last week. It’s one of the highlights of my job, acknowledging and celebrating the outstanding work happening every day here in Canterbury. Making it better for Canterbury people and for our health system was what it was all about. It’s alright to be a winner The All Right? campaign cleaned up at this year’s awards. The wellbeing initiative, run in collaboration with the Mental Health Foundation, took out one of two Supreme Awards, as well as the Improved Health and Equity for all Populations Award and the Consumer Council Award. Sue Turner, All Right? Manager, said the All Right? team was humbled to receive three awards at the ceremony. She was quick to acknowledge that staff from right across the Canterbury Health System have been instrumental in the campaign’s success. She said the focus of the campaign has been to put people at the centre of the recovery and support the wellbeing of Cantabrians post quakes. MBPE team – better for patients and the bottom line The other big winner was the Medical Physics and Bioengineering (MPBE) team who together with the Maxillofacial Department have improved outcomes for patients with eye socket fractures. From 2009 to 2013, eye socket fractures were repaired using commercial plates at a cost of about $1000 each and they had to be fitted in theatre. After a CT scan 33 percent of cases were found not to fit properly and required a return to theatre to correct, which caused further trauma, scarring and costs to theatre time. The team’s project involved creating low cost 3D printed models of patients’ eye sockets and using this to pre-shape titanium plates made in the MPBE workshop within the hospital, at a cost of about $26 each. The outcomes have been ‘no return to theatre’ from 31 cases from 2013 to June 2014. Plates usually fit perfectly first time, and time to insert them has reduced from about 30 minutes to 13 minutes and costs have reduced dramatically. It’s heartening to see how smart thinking and collaboration has had such a positive impact for our patients. Since the awards began a decade ago, 193 projects have made a remarkable difference to the Canterbury Health System. The thinking and effort that’s gone into the various quality improvement projects is absolutely outstanding. Despite everyone’s busyness, there’s a consistent drive to make the health system better. Continues on the following page...
The All Right? team with Gillian Bohm (left), Principal Advisor Quality Improvement, Health Quality and Safety Commission, David Meates (left) and Dr Don Mackie (right), Chief Medical Officer Clinical Leadership, Protection and Regulation Business Unit, Ministry of Health - All Right? team -Neil Brosnahan, Rose Henderson, Lucy Daeth and Sue Turner.