How a clinical governance framework brought this organisation together
Setting a common goal was key to building a strong organisational culture at Great Ocean Road Health.
When Dr Joy Humphreys (pictured) became Board Chair at Great Ocean Road Health in 2019, two neighbouring services at Lorne and Apollo Bay were merging into one.
Each service had different leadership, infrastructure and clinical governance arrangements, even though they offered very similar services. ‘The staff were all members of the community, where even the footy clubs had a healthy strong rivalry,’ says Dr Humphreys, a former nurse and now an organisational consultant.
The key to bringing the services together was to set the direction of the new organisation through policies and frameworks, then support, engage and include staff to bring them along on the journey.
‘It’s impossible to have good clinical governance and establish leadership without first thinking about organisational culture – the organisation’s overarching purpose and intention,’ Dr Humphreys says.
‘To me it was just logical when thinking about how to guide the operations of an organisation – it had to be about great care.’
Dr Joy Humphries, Board Chair, Great Ocean Road Health, Victoria
The board along with the leadership team, developed and implemented the Great Care Framework, a clinical governance framework that aims to make staff confident, skilled and supported to be accountable for their role in the delivery of great care every day. It sets the overarching direction of the entire organisation, with strategies and policies all aligned to its central aim.
The next step was to develop a strategic plan that directly linked with the Great Care Framework. ‘They are intersecting documents and intersecting ways of working. And everything links directly to our core purpose, which is to provide great care,’ Dr Humphreys says.
There was extensive community consultation to inform the organisational strategy and purpose. A community advisory group now meets four times a year.
The board also continues to engage closely with staff through bi-monthly board leadership rounds, where board members conduct site visits to listen to staff, patients, families and volunteers. Staff from both campuses are engaged in addressing quality of care.
As a result of implementing these clinical governance arrangements, together with having shared understanding of the purpose and vision of the organisation, staff across the organisation now trust each other and feel more connected, rather than just doing their job within the scope of their position description, Dr Humphreys says.
‘Across the organisation, we understand that patients’ health is reliant on all the things that we do together. It relies on the way that we talk to each other, the respect that we show to each other, our scenario planning and the huddles that we have every day. It relies on all of these, and the way that we are working together will help every person have a better outcome.
‘We know we’re getting better outcomes through statistical analysis and also, anecdotally, we know we're getting better outcomes because we're hearing it from users of our services.’