St Vincent's Emergency Team Wins Prestigious Wellbeing Award

22 Sep 2023

Congratulations to St Vincent’s Emergency Department, who have won the ACEM Wellbeing Award for 2023.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought about significant changes to healthcare over the past few years, accompanied by unprecedented levels of stress for frontliners, perhaps none more so than for our Emergency department team.

With increased pressures, and a shortage of healthcare staff across all sectors, the risk of overwhelm and burn-out was very real. Recognising the potential harms to staff wellbeing, as well as patient outcomes, Emergency Specialists Drs Nikki Woods and Gonzalo Aguirrebarrena sought to introduce intervention strategies that were both practical and effective to help support our Emergency medical staff.

The first of the interventions was the investment in a wellbeing coach program, engaging a psychologist for psychosocial support, and performance and leadership coaching. The sessions run weekly for 4-5 hours per week, with the ability for doctors to choose face-to-face or online appointments.

The psychologist explores subjects such as moral injury, burnout, mood disturbance, as well as exam/study support, and doctors are released from their shift to attend their appointment, such is the commitment to their wellbeing.

In addition, the team introduced “block leave cover”, which allowed staff to take the much needed annual leave that had accumulated as a result of the pandemic. By recruiting temporary Emergency Doctors to cover roster gaps – and allowing staff to take leave without placing additional burden on the department.

“Our staff have reported feeling valued, feeling supported, and a feeling of psychological safety at work. Some have taken time off as a result of disclosing burnout, some have changed portfolios, some have deferred exams - all of these have resulted in a positive outcomes”, explains Dr Woods.

The feedback has been so overwhelmingly positive in fact, the Department plans to continue the program indefinitely.

Congratulations to all involved!

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Drs Gonzalo Aguirrebarrena and Nikki Woods