Significant progress has been made to turnaround the financial performance of South Australia's largest local health network in the first 100 days of the recovery program.
Lesley Dwyer, CEO of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network (CALHN), said the forecast deficit for this financial year has been reigned in and patients are reaping the benefits.
"I am pleased to report that we are on track to reach our initial target of recovering $41m dollars from our initial forecast deficit by the end of this financial year," Ms Dwyer said.
"This shows that our staff aren't simply just ready for change, they are welcoming it and we are already seeing rewards for their significant effort.
"We have completely cleared the coding backlog of more than 9,000 uncoded separations and is now leading the state in the preparation of medical coding, ensuring we are appropriately funded for the work we do.
"We have also reduced our use of agency nursing staff from 7.7 per cent in January 2018 to 0.7 per cent last month.
"The introduction of daily discharge targets in all inpatient wards and proactive huddles, have resulted in CALHN overnight patients now on average spending half a day less in our hospitals, compared to this time last year.
"This means our patients are getting better consistency of care and are being supported to be either discharged home, or given the right supports to continue their recovery in the community.
"The Stop Ramping Summit in February was another key milestone and the initiatives from that workshop have contributed to these positive results.
"I'm proud to be part of this organisation at this time in its history and I know we have the right people here at CALHN to make the change our staff and community deserve."
KordaMentha Partner and Administrator of CALHN, Chris Martin, said the Recovery team includes both KordaMentha and CALHN staff who bring a unique mix of experience and operational insight.
"We're grateful to have been welcomed to CALHN and for the willingness from many staff to become involved in what is, admittedly, an ambitious program," Mr Martin said.
"The first few months have been spent investing in building the foundations with which to base our future success and I'm confident the actions we've taken so far will be reflected in our end of financial year results.
"I'm most impressed with the way CALHN staff embraced our 'Ways of Working' workshops, with more than 600 people attending the sessions.
"Their feedback helped develop a new organisational structure that puts clinical decision making closer to where patient care is delivered and best reflects how to support staff who take such great care of others."
Nurse Unit Manager at the RAH, Natasha Leedham, said the change in her department has been noticeable.
"Initially I was sceptical about the change to our team huddles as we had already experienced many changes to the way we communicated within our multi-disciplinary team," Ms Leedham said.
"I didn't think it would make much difference, but there has definitely been a positive shift in attitude and preparation from all staff involved, so I am now fully committed to the plan.
"It's not only the patients who are benefiting from having greater clarity with plans made in a more timely manner, but medical staff have also commented to me that they are not receiving as many interruptions due to the timing and focus of the huddle, which is allowing more productive work to occur."
