District recognised for innovation in patient care
The 2025 NSW Health Awards, held on 30 October, celebrated the incredible teams and individuals who enrich health in millions of ways every day.
Sixteen winners were recognised for driving innovation and improving patient care across the state.
We are excited to announce our District won two of these awards.
Keeping People Healthy Award: Protecting Aged Care Residents from Vaccine Preventable Diseases
Vaccination coverage is below recommended guidelines among those living in residential aged care facilities (RACFs), increasing risk of hospitalisation, death and disease outbreaks. To improve coverage, this project targeted 4 recommended and funded vaccines for our District’s RACF residents: COVID-19, influenza, pneumococcal and shingles.
Barriers to vaccination were first identified via surveys and interviews with in-reach geriatric teams, general practitioners, RACF staff, residents and their families across 90 RACFs in our District. Findings included difficulty accessing and tracking resident vaccination histories, difficulty finding vaccination providers, a lack of simple or translated vaccine information and complex consent processes.
This resulted in creating tailored action plans, vaccination trackers, online consent forms and introducing staff education sessions. Changes in vaccination coverage following these interventions varied between vaccines, with a median of 8.2% for COVID-19; 4.4% for pneumococcal; and 20.8% % for shingles.
Patient Safety First Award: ARCTIC – Accelerated Review and Coordination of Treatment, Investigation and Care
The Accelerated Review and Coordination of Treatment, Investigation and Care (ARCTIC) model was introduced at The Sutherland Hospital Emergency Department (TSH ED) in winter 2024 to address long wait times and care delays for Triage Category 2 (T2) patients.
Operational weekdays from 10:00am to 8:00pm, ARCTIC's front-of-house team included an emergency physician, intern, and senior registered nurse to deliver early senior-led assessments, targeted investigations, earlier commencement of treatment and streamlined specialist and allied health referrals.
During ARCTIC hours, the team consistently treated a third of all presentations and reduced median T2 wait times by 80% - from 40 minutes to 7–9 minutes. More than 80% of T2 patients were seen within the recommended 10-minute benchmark. Admitted T2 patients spent an average of 1 hour and 15-minutes less in TSH ED compared to winter 2023.
Its success has led to permanent establishment at TSH ED and shows that ARCTIC is a scalable, sustainable model for improving patient flow, efficiency, and safety in emergency departments across NSW.
We are incredibly proud to have our teams recognised for their dedication and hard work in driving exceptional care to our communities.
