PORT Macquarie health services were rewarded for excellence at an award ceremony last week.
The Mid North Coast Local Health District’s (MNCLHD) annual Quality Awards were presented at Rydges Port Macquarie on Friday night with three Hastings services coming up trumps.
Hastings-Macleay Aged Care Assessment Team’s program Working Smarter Not Harder was a winner in the category of improving access to timely quality health care.
Port Macquarie Community Health’s Tobacco Free Comorbid Youth Residential Program won the collaboration category for team work and Port Macquarie Base Hospital won an award for achievement for reducing hospital acquired infections in patients with a central venous access device.
Chief executive of MNCLHD Stewart Dowrick said the awards recognise innovative programs delivered by health care staff across the Mid-North Coast daily.
“By participating in the process of designing, providing and evaluating new programs and services, staff can have a truly significant impact on improvements to patient health, workplace efficiency and patient satisfaction,” Mr Dowrick said.
The MNCLHD Mental Health Services program Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk was a winner for the building the health
workforce category while the Drug and Alcohol Team won the chairman’s (Warren Grimshaw) award for
evaluating tele-health in opioid (medications similar to narcotics) treatment.
The program aims to increase opportunities for opioid-dependent people to access substitute therapy and telemedicine is endorsed as an appropriate mode of conducting real-time consultations between people and their doctor at a distant location.
The Mid North Coast Local Health District also received an excellence in education and training award for its Health e Tube project.
Mr Dowrick said he was extremely pleased with the number and quality of the applications.