The biannual 13th National Allied Health Conference was held from 9 to 12 August and Mater Allied Health were well represented at the peak body event with seven oral and poster presentations by fourteen staff.
Director of Mater Allied Health, Anne Maree Buttner said it was great to see Mater so well represented across the varied specialties.
“For the first time, the conference was held virtually, showcasing the latest innovations in Allied Health across the healthcare industry, disability and other sectors,” Ms Buttner said.
“Feedback from the conference has been overwhelmingly positive and we look forward to seeing Mater represented as well in 2023.”
Anne Maree and colleagues from St John of God and Cabrini Health presented on the formation of the Catholic Allied Health committee which is giving a collective voice for Allied Health working in catholic organisations, and contributing to the National Health policy agenda
Acting Acute Paediatric Team Leader Physiotherapy and Education Coordinator, Felicity Prebble and Acute Physiotherapy Team Leader Jenny Murphy presented on Preparing for the pandemic: The role of simulation in acute retraining.
“We were able to showcase how we engaged 87 physiotherapists to perform 113 simulations in four weeks as a rapid adaptation to the threat of unprecedented patient numbers and acuity in health care delivery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ms Prebble said.
Director of Occupational Therapy Ray Kopeshke presented on Implementing the Lean Daily Management System (DMS) Optimising workforce engagement, communication and continuous improvement.
“This DMS helped us to improve workforce engagement, communication, clinical decision making, patient capacity, identification of problems and or potential risks which led to better patient care and greater efficiency of the team,” Mr Kopeshke said.
Occupational Therapist, Aleysha Martin and her team presented on Turning transdisciplinary: Steps, tools and resources to develop a transdisciplinary stroke assessment.
“My presentation explored the steps, tools, and resources we used to guide the successful development of a transdisciplinary assessment to use with patients admitting with mild stroke and Transient Ischaemic Attack (TIA),” Ms Martin said.
Service Development Coordinator Rae Parker presented on How the results of a telehealth audit tool and confidence survey were used to strengthen allied health telehealth capability in a metropolitan hospital.
“During COVID-19 we expanded our telehealth delivery and Mater Allied Health was third in the state, we collaborated with Mater Education and audit allied health telehealth services to understand how we could strengthen our practice,” Ms Parker said.
Speech Pathologist Jessie Cutler presented on Measuring patient outcomes as well as patient and referrer satisfaction in patients with chronic cough/paradoxical vocal cord movement.
“We sought to evaluate the impact of the chronic refractory cough (CC) and Paradoxical Vocal Cord Movement (PVCM) service on our patient’s impairment and overall quality of life discovering we were making a positive different to their condition,” Ms Cutler said.
Speech Pathologist Jess Samways presented on Implementing the use of Gloup medication lubricant for pill dysphagia on an acute hospital ward: patient, nursing staff, and speech pathologist experience and safety outcomes.
“Patients who have difficulty taking pills due to swallowing difficulty are usually given their medication with a carrier substance for example custard, a new product Gloup® was proven beneficial in helping patients take oral medication,” Ms Samways said.