Page 51 - Joondalup Health Campus Annual Report 2017

carol Pilcher has been the Bed Manager at JHC since 2006, when she was appointed to develop what was then a newly formed role, but it’s the work she has done with residential aged care facilities for which she’s become best known.
After attending a GP forum many years ago Carol identified an enormous opportunity to improve communication between the acute care and aged care facilities. She implemented a simple yet innovative process that has fundamentally changed the way hospitals and aged care facilities work together.
JHC’s Director of Clinical Services Ben Irish said Carol works closely with Carol Douglas,
a nurse practitioner from the Residential Care Line, to run workshops for people working in residential aged care to educate them in areas of health care that can minimise unnecessary hospitalisations.
“The first session was held eight years ago. It was a breakfast workshop at JHC with just 15 attendees,” he said.
“Today this has grown to a full day workshop three times a year. At the last workshop there were more than a hundred attendees.
The two Carols put many hours of work into
preparing for the day and what is taught during these workshops is absolutely invaluable.”
Topics have covered everything from wound management to incontinence to prevention of falls. Carol also developed a ‘Residential Aged Care Facility Book’ that provides hospital staff with information about each facility to improve discharge and internal communication between health sectors.
Importantly, she worked together with the Residential Care Line and aged care facilities to create a special orange communication envelope with a checklist on the front that can be used for transferring patients into hospital and discharging them back to the facility.
The envelope contains all their relevant medical information and this helps improve continuity of care. Her initiative on improving communication between JHC and the residential aged care facilities has resulted in
smoother transitions for patients going from hospital back to their community facility – and from their community facility into hospital.
Ben said it has enormous benefit for elderly people living in the community in aged care facilities as it improves the continuity of their care.
“Her work has highlighted that bridging the
gap between health care professionals can profoundly enhance patient outcomes,” he said.
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