Two Eastern Health initiatives have been recognised for their efforts in the recent Victorian Public Healthcare Awards.
Eastern Health’s Social Work Team won a Victorian Public Healthcare Award in the category of ‘Celebrating a Strong and Sustainable Workforce’ while the Rahma Health team
Director of the Allied Health Workforce Jackie Orwin said the Social Work service, working across five of the Eastern Health hospitals, won the award for their work in ‘Boosting Social Work via AHA (Allied Health Assistant) Roles in RACS (Residential Aged Care Services)/TCP (Transition Care Program) Pathways’.
“The Social Work teams were delighted and proud to win the award in recognition of their efforts to improve outcomes for patients, Eastern Health Social Work teams are committed to delivering high quality care and this Award validated their hard work and innovation,” she said.
“Eastern Health Social Workers are a qualified and credentialled workforce that focus on understanding patients in their social and community contexts, with the view to maximising the support available to them to promote the best possible health and wellbeing outcomes.
“The Social Work Allied Health Assistant workforce was introduced to further enhance these health and wellbeing outcomes for patients.”
The AHA roles were established due to high turnover and long patient stays in the RACS/TCP pathway and by late 2024, staff turnover had been cut by 29 per cent, referral response improved by 60 per cent, discharge times reduced by 25 per cent and had freed up 5440 hospital beds.
Ms Orwin said the awarded work was a targeted Social Work Allied Health Assistant workforce and model of care reform initiative.
“It focused on inpatient teams supporting older adults awaiting permanent Residential Aged Care (RACS) placement, the initiative demonstrated improvements in patient care, staff experience, as well as system efficiency,” she said.
“The Eastern Health Social Work leadership team continues to explore how a Social Work Allied Health Assistant workforce may improve patient care pertaining to other social issues. “Furthermore, we are looking in to how we can share the new knowledge and learnings with other social work services.”
The Rahma Health team won an award for ‘Excellence in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’, for their work on ‘A Blueprint for Community-led Multicultural Health Resources, starting with the Arabic-speaking community’.
The Rahma Health team was founded at Eastern Health and works with 20 partners, codesigning community-led multicultural health resources, aiming to help improve healthcare for refugee and migrant families across Victoria.
The Rahma Health team were contacted for comment.
