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Vic Management Interns' blog

Blog posts by Victorian 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.


ACHSM Admin
ACHSM Admin

HMIP Victoria Management Interns

How not to waste a good healthcare crisis (Tinto Cherian)

COVID, in all its might, crippled the day-to-day functioning of people, organisations, governments, and social structures. It will be constructive to appraise the lessons this crisis invoked on our accustomed conventional systems and the visions that the resilience and experience instilled.

Pledging Allegiance: the dual loyalties of the public service (Harrison Thorn)

From the ‘West Wing’, to ‘Parks and Recreation’, and Australia’s own ‘Utopia’; there are many enjoyable and humorous representations of life in the public service. This semester I am excited to join its ranks at the Victorian Department of Health and learn about life as a government employee.

Transitioning - A move from the world of supply chain management to health policy administration

The intricacies in governance and change management that precedes implementation of new policies or organisational change was quite fascinating. This has been quite helpful in bridging the gap between my experiences as a healthcare staff working at the coalface and policy administration.
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The role of a health manager during a health crisis – Responding to COVID-19 and leading through uncertainty

When I commenced the health management internship in 2020, I would never have expected to be involved in one of the largest public health crises to affect the Australian health system. COVID-19 has infected over 2 million people and resulted in 161,000 deaths globally.

National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards and the new Health Manager

Ensuring the delivery of safe and high-quality patient care is the responsibility of everyone that work within the health service – including the patient themselves. Introduced in 2013, the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards stipulate the level of care consumers can expect to receive during their episode of care.

Settling into a new professional environment

A steep learning curve of the internship is settling into new and unfamiliar environments. We start 4 jobs in 2 years, each placement is vastly different and generally involves a role that we have had limited prior experience in. Integrating quickly into new working environments is always challenging and is a skill that needs to be developed like any other. But some simple methods can be utilised to make the transition easier and more effective.
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Aviation accidents and patient safety

Aviation is by no doubt a high risk industry, but it is a relatively safe one. The National Safety Council in the US estimated in 2017 that the lifetime odds of death for being a passenger on a plane is 1 in 188,364.2 This shows that it is highly unlikely for someone to die due to a plane accident. On the other hand, healthcare, the high risk industry that is often not perceived as one by the public, has a much lower safety profile.

The role health managers can play in creating culturally safe environments for Aboriginal people

The colonisation and historical events that have occurred in Australia have had and continue to have devastating impacts on Aboriginal people. Accessing healthcare can be particularly difficult for our First Nations people due to a deep mistrust and the institutional racism present in most hospitals.