NSW Management Interns' Blog

Blog posts by NSW Management Interns of the Australasian College of Health Service Management. Views are those of the individual authors and not those of ACHSM or management interns’ host organisations or employers.


Oscar Chaffey
Oscar Chaffey

ACHSM blog

A Day in the Life of Jith Perera, 1st Year Intern

Author: By Caleb Teh with Jith Perera

Date: September 29, 2015

7.30am

My morning routine since starting the internship has been to arrive at work and sort through my emails and calendar for the day. This morning is no different. I’ve gotten a few emails about team meetings that I have been scheduling. The team meetings are an important tool in maintaining open, two-way communication between the project team and the ITS staff. Furthermore, it allows us to address any concerns and anxieties that may arise as a result of the Transformation program.

I’ve also had to reschedule a meeting with Ellie McCann, Manager of Education and Training Services in the Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD). Ellie manages the program in Western Sydney and we have been trying to organise a catch up to discuss how I am developing in the program so far.

8.30am

One of the things I’ve learned is that in health, being a male health intern means that you are in demand to be the independent male on interview panels! There are interviews occurring for an administration officer role so I spend some time reviewing applicants and providing my recommendations for interview.

The last thing I do as part of my “me” time this morning is to register for the ACHSM Congress in October. This is the first year that all interns from Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales are attending Congress so I am really keen to network and hear from some exciting speakers!

9.30am

My previous placement involved organising a “Quality Improvement Curriculum” with the Clinical Governance team in the WSLHD. The pilot program ran over four whole-day sessions on an introductory to patient safety and clinical quality, person-centered care, adverse events and improvement science.

This morning I met up with Ms Rizwan who is a Masters student now assisting with the ongoing development of the curriculum. I discussed with her the future plans for the Curriculum, such as the communications strategy and particular groups that we want to target as attendees. We received some very valuable feedback from the pilot that will now be used to shape Curriculum as it goes forward.

10.45am

I head back to the office to spend some quality time reviewing the Risk Register for ITS with Sabrina Walsh, the Chief Information Officer at WSLHD. There are a number of risks we have documented that need to be reworded to better articulate the actual risk and the mitigation strategies.

1pm

Grab a quick lunch. I am being healthy so today its chicken breast and some broccoli! I spend a few minutes at lunch organising the monthly meeting we have for Western Sydney trainees and interns. I’ve organised Tom O’Callaghan, Change Manager for the Transformation Program to come speak to us on change management and stakeholder mapping and engagement.

1.30pm

As part of our communications strategy for the Transformation Project, Tom and I meet with departmental teams on a regular basis to address any concerns or burning questions they may have. Furthermore, this gives us an opportunity to provide an update on our work and engage with the stakeholders.

The Transformation Program involves the enhancement of the ITS function to better meet the future demands of the Health Services environment. The program involves:

Western Sydney LHD ITS transformation program

2.30pm

Team meeting time. My current team has three others: a Change Management Lead, Project Manager and a Technical Consultant. My immediate supervisors are the Change Management Lead (primarily responsible for stake holder engagement, organisational development, communications and change management) and the Project Manager (primarily responsible for delivering on project objectives).

The Transformation Program team meets on a daily basis to get together to nut out some of the key issues we are facing and plan ahead. We spend today’s meeting going through our progress with stakeholder engagement and communications. In particular, we have been working on a “question and answer” log to make sure we are providing consistent messaging for common questions.

3pm

I leave work early today to head out to the Emerging Health Leaders Forum lead in PwC’s Sydney head office. This forum explored disruption in health and how new ideas will change how health care is delivered in the future. This is exactly the type of thing that I am interested in being part of! There are some great talks and a couple of which are very relevant to my current role in ICT. I hang around to chat to others (including a few interns who have come as well) and head home at around 830pm.

9.30pm

I finish up the day with getting an hour of work on an assignment for Health Service Resource Management, as part of my Masters in Health Administration. Days don’t always end this late, but a combination of a new placement, regular extracurricular professional functions and a busy period at university has meant the days are a little longer.

 

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