Western Health

🎉 Celebrating one incredible year of the Sunshine Hospital in the Home team! In just 12 months, we’ve provided hospital-level care for more than 650 patients in their homes or usual residences. A huge thank you to our dedicated multidisciplinary team for their hard work and commitment to providing comprehensive care to our patients. Hospital in the Home has been around for 30 years in Australia. As part of our ongoing commitment to increasing home-based care, we set up a dedicated Sunshine Hospital in the Home site in March last year. This type of care has been shown to be comparable to traditional hospital care, cost effective and reduces inpatient length of stay. ✨ Here’s to many more years of making a difference! 💙🎉

✨ Meet Kate, one of our incredible Lived Experience Advisors! ✨ Kate shares her knowledge and personal experiences as a person with Down syndrome to help educate Western Health staff and consumers on effective communication with people with intellectual disabilities. One of the ways she does this is through her presentation, Doing My Own Thing: My Experience, Day-to-Day Life of People with Down Syndrome. She delivers this to consumers, doctors, nurses, and other health professionals, highlighting the importance of understanding individual lived experiences. By fostering a deeper understanding, Kate helps improve the way healthcare providers interact with and support people with disabilities. Her firsthand insights shed light on the challenges faced by individuals with disabilities, particularly Down syndrome, helping to create a more inclusive and supportive healthcare environment. Today, on World Down Syndrome Day, we want to extend a huge thank you to Kate for her incredible work in advocacy, representation, and inclusion. She shares her story with kindness, compassion, and a contagious smile—making a difference for so many. We’re lucky to have you, Kate! 💙💛

On National Close the Gap Day, we want to acknowledge the important role we play as a health service in overcoming inequality experienced by our First Nations people and achieve life outcomes equal to non-Indigenous Australians. Through dedicated training, community engagement, and tailored healthcare services, we are working to build an inclusive healthcare environment that honours the traditions and needs of all patients, closing the gap one step at a time. Wilim Berrbang Manager Ashleigh Vandenberg and proud Wiradjuri woman said that everyone has a role to play in achieving health equity for all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. “The goal is to unite us all in taking meaningful action toward health equity for First Nations Peoples by 2032,” she said. “We each have a part to play in Closing The Gap, and our actions can make a positive difference in the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, as well as society. Closing the gap is not just a goal, it’s a shared responsibility to ensure fairness and equality for future generations.” ✨Some of the ways we are contributing to closing the gap include: 🔹 The expansion of the Aboriginal Outpatient Clinic. The clinic runs every fortnight on Wednesdays to help re-engage community in attending specialist appointments with Western Health. Patients get a longer appointment, support from an Aboriginal Health Liaison Officer, and the services have been extended to include cardio, GenMed, social workers and diabetes educators. The clinic also assists in co-ordinating follow-up appointments and referrals. 🔹 Our Wilim Berrbang team working closely with the Emergency and Urgent Care Departments to reduce the rate of Aboriginal patients leaving without treatment. 🔹 Increasing education for Western Health staff, with plans to expand Cultural Awareness and Safety training to grow knowledge across Western Health. 🔹 Engaging with the community through events such as Welcome Baby to Country. Read more about this: https://bit.ly/3FEGFC6 ✨We are also excited to share our new culturally sensitive patient space at Sunshine Hospital where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff, patients, friends and families can come and be during their time at Sunshine Hospital.

💡 Did you know the Australian healthcare sector is responsible for 7% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions? 🌍 We are proud to share that Dr Forbes McGain , the Director of the ICU at Footscray Hospital, is leading a groundbreaking research initiative aimed at reducing carbon emissions in hospitals. With a historic $1 million grant from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) , he’ll be spearheading five key projects focused on energy and waste reduction. Together with collaborators from various healthcare services and research institutes, Dr McGain is set to make a positive impact on both our environment and patient care. The projects include: exploring energy reduction strategies for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems; assessing the waste from single-use medical equipment and sustainable prescribing. Congratulations to everyone involved in this important work! 👏 Read more on our website: https://bit.ly/3RhTAMI University of Melbourne

From a young age, Kellie Vivekanantham GAICD was fascinated by the human body and driven by a desire to help others. "I used to chase my brother around the house pretending he was my patient," Kellie recalls. She jokes that it was the perfect grounding for her 27-year career in public healthcare including 18 years in critical care nursing. Kellie is our Divisional Director, Aged, General Medicine and Subacute (AGMS) Division. As a leader, Kellie is known for being empathetic and inclusive and aims to be visible, available, and attuned to the needs of her staff.

The Western Public Health Unit (WPHU) were excited to host Chief Health Officer, Dr Tarun Weeramanthri AM and Executive Director of Public Health Network and Programs, Dr Bridie O'Donnell from the Department of Health last week. Their visit provided a valuable opportunity to discuss the value of local public health action, highlighting the importance of using evidence and practical action to effect change. WPHU thanks Dr Weeramanthri and Dr O’Donnell for sharing their insights and looks forward to the ongoing collaboration to help our community in the West stay well.

At Western Health, we are proud to celebrate the incredible contributions of women who make up 75 percent of our workforce. Every day, we remain committed to pursuing gender equity and creating a supportive, inclusive environment for all. To mark International Women’s Day, we asked some of our amazing staff to reflect on their careers so far and share the advice they would give their younger selves. Their stories remind us of the power of resilience, the importance of supporting one another, and the value of following your passions. This year’s IWD theme – March Forward – for ALL women and girls – is in line with Western Health’s approach to pursuing gender equity and the organisation-wide commitment to ensuring we are a leader in this space, taking positive action towards achieving workplace equality and inclusion. Western Health’s Gender Equity Action Plan, first established in 2022 and expanding every year since, is a key pillar of this vitally important work. ✨ Some of the highlights that have been achieved from this plan are: 👉 New, modern guidelines for rostering for nurses and midwives, which means we’re now offering greater flexibility, better work/life balance, improved fatigue management and fairer rosters 👉 Promoting and improving access to parental leave to people of all genders Analysis of the pay gaps between genders across our organisation, with plans for further investigation 👉 Building diversity, equity and inclusion measures into workforce planning Continual improvement of family violence prevention and response practices for employees 👉 Campaigns addressing gendered stereotypes, and outdated thinking about suitability of professions for different genders. #IWD2025 #WomenInLeadership #GenderEquity #InternationalWomensDay #WesternHealth#MarchForward

Wonderful opportunities! Expressions of Interest are now open for the new Melton Hospital. Register and learn more below! ⬇️

In the lead up to International Women’s Day, we are celebrating some of the inspirational women we have at our organisation. One of those is Rebecca Barbara, Acting Operations Manager for Consumer Partnerships and the Disability Liaison Service.

Technology has become integral to the way we work in healthcare, and Kylee Ross has embraced this, using the changing landscape to improve the work of Western Health nurses and midwives —ultimately leading to better patient outcomes. During the planning of phase one of EMR, Kylee took up a three-month secondment to the Digital Health team. And she has never looked back. Seven years later, she is the Director of Nursing and Midwifery Informatics in that same department, shaping the future of nursing and midwifery at Western Health. "Digital Health is so much more than systems," Kylee explains. "It’s process-driven, constantly improving, and looking at how we can do things differently for better patient outcomes." "Being at the forefront of how we can make our roles more efficient, being supported by the system, while we're caring for our patients and using technology to do that. Ultimately, that's going to lead to better care, isn't it?" Kylee always wanted to influence how nursing could be done more efficiently—not forgetting the past, but using that knowledge to improve the future. Being brave enough to try something new, and thinking forward has led to many successes for the Digital Health team. "My role is to make sure that from a clinical perspective, these new systems and processes are going to help look after our patients and help the clinicians perform their roles, not just put a barrier in there." The most recent achievement for the team was rolling EMR out at Bacchus Marsh and Melton. "That was such a great experience! We’ve taken learnings from previous experiences, and everything worked on day one. It was really pleasing for the whole team. Change can be hard, and change can take time, but we have a lot more people sharing ideas and improvements through the system. That's where I get the joy—because we've reached a point where we can actually listen to the people using the system daily, and they can contribute to how it works, so we can improve it together." "It's exciting because you don't know what the future will hold. What new technology will change the way we do things? But our team is playing such a key role in transforming the way we deliver healthcare at Western Health." ❤️🏥💡