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Exceptional People Awards 2022

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​The 2022 Exceptional People Awards were held on Thursday 9 March​ 2023 to celebrate and formally recognise staff and volunteers across the district.

Congratulations to all our nominees and winners, who are all truly exceptional and make a positive difference in people's lives each day. ​You can see the full list of nominees hereExternal Link.​
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PARTNERING WITH CONSUMERS AND CARERS

 

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Individual Winner

Joanne Francis: Joanne has consistently exhibited high quality patient care and carer support thus ensuring a positive patient and carer experience.  

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​​Team Winner

ISBAR Supporting Safe Transition to Care team from Mental Health Drug and Alcohol: This team has led a significant co-design project which focuses on the core components of clinical handover 'ISBAR in Mental Health Drug and Alcohol Setting'.

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SAFE AND CONNECTED CARE


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Individual Winner

Trisha Rimmer: Trisha plays a major clinical, coordination and advocacy role for people living in the community with disabilities, who are either transitioning, applying or funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

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Consumer Nominated winner

Dr Vincent Oxenham: Dr Vincent was nominated by of one of his patients who is extremely grateful for the high quality and supportive treatment that she received.

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Team Winner

Graythwaite Day Rehabilitation Team: The Graythwaite Day Rehabilitation team designed and implemented a completely new, innovative and adaptive service catering to the rehabilitation needs of the community. This is the only such program within NSLHD which provides an alternative to inpatient rehabilitation admission in order to reduce inpatient length of stay.

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HEALTHY AND W​ELL COMMUNITIES

 

Individual Winner

Dr Seeta Durvasula: Dr Seeta has dedicated her career to improving the health outcomes of people with intellectual disability. Dr Seeta's care and compassion for this vulnerable population and their families and carers has been truly exceptional.

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Team Winner

Grand Stand Against Domestic Abuse: This team has shown exemplary relationship building and negotiation skills, recruiting sporting clubs from across northern Sydney and achieving an outstanding level of engagement with members and players as allies to take a stand and work to prevent, and call out, domestic violence in their communities.

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RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND DIGITAL HEALTH


 

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Alison Hession: Alison is the Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Consultant at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital and in collaboration with others, she has recently written and published an article 'End-of-life dreams and visions: A systematic integrative review' in the International Journal of Palliative and Supportive Care.

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SUSTAINABILITY AND PLANETARY HEALTH


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Individual Winner

Rado Nikic: Rado is a valuable member of the Sustainability Committee at Ryde Hospital and has done exemplary work to implement sustainable and economical waste management solutions.

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Team Winner

NSLHD Capital Works team: This team played a key role in the District's planetary health program in the area of energy and assets and have successfully developed business cases and obtained external funding to generate financial and carbon savings for the district.

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ENGAGED AND SUPPORTED PEOPLE

 

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Individual Winner

Sarah Childs: Sarah provides outstanding support to all the allied health clinicians in her role as Allied Health Performance Analyst. Sarah's unique skillset encompassing information technology, data analysis and digital health combined with her passion have enabled her to empower clinicians across the health district.

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Team Winner

The Aged Care Rapid Response Team: For a relatively small team, the Aged Care Rapid Response Team has an incredible influence over the aged care community in the Lower North Shore and Ryde areas. They work tirelessly to advocate for the rights of elderly people in aged cared facilities and also people living independently in the community.

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CORE VALUES AND BEHAVIOURS


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Individual Winner

Danielle Fera: Whilst working as a Revenue Manager Danielle demonstrates openness and encourages empowerment in all her interactions. She fosters trust which leads to increased collaboration within the finance team and at all times Danielle shows respect for all those she engages with.

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Team Winner

Intensive Care Unit, Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital: The Hornsby Hospital ICU team has demonstrated openness and collaboration whilst working with the hospital redevelopment team to design and build a new ICU, whilst also meeting the needs of the community throughout the pandemic.

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Volunteer winner

Brian Collier: Brian volunteers with the Ambulatory Care Centre at Royal North Shore Hospital three times a week and demonstrates our values by working with others to develop guides to helping patients find their way to their appointment whilst also providing emotional support to patients.

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Consumer nominated winner:

Therese Jepson: Therese works as a Clinical Nurse Consultant in our Aged Care Rapid Response Team and was nominated for this award by a carer whose elderly mother attended RNSH emergency department. Therese provided exceptional patient care and carer support, demonstrating our CORE values throughout all interactions.

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LEADERSHIP AWARD


Dr Michelle Mulligan

During the peak of the COVID pandemic, Michelle's leadership at Royal North Shore and the district provided frontline clinicians with the confidence and protection that enabled RNSH to be at the fore front of the Australian hospital COVID response. Many of the initial strategies and protocols developed under the leadership of Michelle were later adopted by other government agencies.

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Sakibul (Ovi) Chowdhury

Sakibul has demonstrated exemplary leadership of the Environmental Services team at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital. He exemplifies a high level of integrity in this leadership style, and consistently inspires and motivates his staff.

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Chief Executive Commendation


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Rachel Wolfe

Rachel joined the district in December 2021 and her first priority was to embed the Prevention and Response to Violence Abuse and Neglect (PARVAN) services restructure to become streamlined and provide clear pathways for patients, as well as for staff to navigate.

She has led the PARVAN team to operationalise the centralised intake process known as Referral Management and Early Response. This integrated approach enhances responses to patients. Rachel has undertaken a strategic and operational leadership approach to planning and redesigning of PARVAN services across the district.

 

Katherine Clark

Katy took on the role of Clinical Director for Supportive and Palliative Care services in 2017 and has grown and expanded the service to accommodate all levels of palliative patients.

Under Katy's leadership, the NSLHD Bereavement Bag project was born to support and improve the care provided to grieving relatives. Katy also introduced the NSLHD End of Life Symbol and signage to promote dignity and respect around a personal and intimate experience. She has also been working closely with the providers of palliative care to integrate telehealth as a core component for palliative care services, which allows easier access to palliative care for patients within NSLHD.

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Board Commendation


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Tidge Backhouse and Dash Gray

Tidge and Dash have been recognised for going beyond the responsibilities of their substantive roles to deliver a range of initiatives that progress inclusion for LGBTIQ+ employees at Northern Sydney Local Health District. 

Some of their many achievements include developing, expanding and actively delivering our district's LGBTIQ+ education program, coordinating processes to enhance our organisation's policies and procedures to maximise inclusion for LGBTIQ+ people and facilitating our district's first ever submission as part of the Australian Workplace Equality Index, the definitive national benchmark on LGBTQ workplace inclusion. 

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