Have an idea but don’t know where to start? Trying to get some improvements off the ground but keep facing barriers? Let’s get them moving! May is your month!

The Transformation Team is focused on fostering and supporting innovation at Northern Health. Innovation is defined as having the creative idea plus having the skills and capabilities to deliver on the idea.

Innovation Month will run through the month of May and will include avenues to elicit creative and different ideas on solving issues relating to clinical or non-clinical work and building staff skills in innovation.

Across Northern Hospital Epping, Bundoora Centre, Broadmeadows Hospital and Craigieburn Centre, there will be a range of events and activities to help develop new and innovative ideas. Staff can interact in a range of activities across the month through face-to-face or online sessions or via IdeaScale.

Staff can submit ideas through IdeaScale, which will be open until Monday, 22 May. All ideas will be reviewed by the Executive team, with a select few to be pitched to them in more detail on Wednesday, 31 May in the IdeasLab at Northern Centre for Health Education Research (NCHER).

Those ideas will then go through the Northern Academy of Learning Improvement (NALI). NALI is the structured delivery of improvement learning, which will be delivered from June to August. This will include a component of online self-directed modules for staff to attend fortnightly, along with deliverables aligned to their idea submission. The modules are run through the Institute of Health Care Improvement and will be delivered along with one-on-one fortnightly coaching sessions by members of the Transformation Unit to support the pilot and implementation of their idea.

Staff will also have the opportunity to attend Ideas Cafes – informal sessions set up for staff to discuss ideas. It is an opportunity to bring like-minded people together to discuss some of the current opportunities for improvement. Transformation Unit team members will be available with resources to assist in shaping ideas for submission on IdeaScale.

During May, there will also be presentations from staff who have gone through the process of submitting, refining, scoping and implementing their Big Ideas. Staff will discuss their experiences navigating Northern Health to implement service improvement.

Short bites are structured education sessions on topics to support and build innovation skills, including an insight into Northern Health’s HRO journey so far, creative thinking, what exactly is NALI, and presentation skills.

“We want to see as many staff engage with innovation as they can across the month. Log onto IdeasScale and submit ideas, attend a short bite or Ideas Cafe, talk to your teams about ideas you may have. We are looking forward to starting the conversation about innovation with everyone,” said Laura Hughes and Cassie Bramston, Project Managers.

For more information on Innovation Month, including a structure of what the month will look like, please visit the Intranet.

To attend any of the Innovation Month sessions, please email BigIdea@nh.org.au.

Featured image: Derwin Or, Paula Dimakos-Pugliese, Sue Mathieson, Steve Ferguson and Erika Dax attending an Ideas Cafe.