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Waikato Hospital consultation underwayWaikato Hospital staff today got a glimpse of how the hospital’s structure could look; now all it needs is their feedback.Health Waikato chief operating officer Jan Adams and Waikato DHB director of nursing and midwifery Sue Hayward released a consultation document at a presentation in the Bryant Education Centre auditorium this afternoon. Mrs Adams set up the nursing and midwifery project late last year as part of the Health Waikato: Where to Now? series of documents. The project’s aim was to establish a structure and accountability framework for nursing at Waikato Hospital. The project team looked at Waikato Hospital’s current structure identifying both the strengths and weaknesses and identifying potential benefits from a new structure. Over four months the project team, which included members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), interviewed hundreds of nurses, health care assistants, midwives, educators, health care assistants, duty managers, operations’ managers and patients. The changes proposed is a new nurse management structure across Waikato Hospital focussing on clinical leadership with the aim of putting the hospital into the hands of clinicians. It does not include at this stage Older Persons and Rehabilitation Services, Community Service, Mental Health and Addiction Service or the rural hospitals, although this is a possibility in the future, said Mrs Adams. “We’ve just started the process of engagement with the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) to discuss what a similar structure could look like for medical staff leadership.” The changes proposed would replace the current nurse structure at Waikato Hospital with 12 nurse managers of a business unit reporting through to an Associate Director of Nursing, said Mrs Hayward. This proposal supports other major Waikato Hospital initiatives including a proposed clustering model, bed footprint and nursing resource model. These initiatives group the specialities into clusters of logical clinical nature in order to optimise appropriate patient placement and flexible resourcing. “Clustering supports the aim to place patients in an appropriate clinical area,” she said. “This is a significant change to the way Waikato Hospital operates.” The benefits of the proposed structure:
Staff feedback on the consultation document closes 16 June and a final decision released to staff in mid-July. Waikato Hospital is a 600 bed regional base hospital in Hamilton. It is part of Health Waikato, the provider arm of the Waikato District Health Board. It provides a regional network of integrated hospital and community-based health services to a population of 360,000 from the Midland region. Date: 19 May 2009 Contact: Mary Anne Gill Director Media and Communications Waikato District Health Board Ph: 07 834 3684 Fax: 07 839 8680 Mobile: 021 705 213 |