Great Care Rounds allow The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) Executive team to experience life on the coal face of the hospital and assist staff to continually improve quality of care.

The Great Care Round (GCR) is an interactive program that provide patients, families and staff the opportunity to interact with members of the RCH Executive team. The GCR comprises of a Consumer Representative, Chief Executive Officer or Deputy Chief Executive Officer, members of the Executive team, Chief of Medicine or Surgery and the Operations Director for the area, ward or department.

“Executives can see what the staff on the wards are doing, how they are providing great care, how they can assist them to improve the quality of care and share knowledge from other areas,” Quality Manager in Strategy and Improvement Sharon Smith said. “It also enables the Executive team to have conversations with patients, parents and families; and to get ‘real-time’ feedback on what that great care means to our patients.”

The GCR team is easily identifiable in the hospital by their GRC green jackets. The twice-weekly rounds also help staff review patients’ journeys and to ensure all care is patient and family-centred.

The program started as a trial in September 2013, and formally commenced in January 2014. To date more than fifty Great Care Rounds have been conducted with many departments participating in two of three rounds.

“We are now visiting non-clinical areas of the hospital, smaller departments and satellite areas. These are areas that the Executive team may not be familiar with, but they are vital to the way the organisation operates,” Sharon said.

Chief of Surgery Mike O’Brien said that the Great Care Rounds foster connections between staff at all levels.

“It shows the workforce that their contribution is important, and that the executive value and appreciate it,” Mr O’Brien said. “One of the pathways to patient-centred care is through engaged, connected, valued, high-performing staff.”

The GCR team is now seeking feedback from staff on how to improve the program.

“Positive experience is not just about patients, if our staff are happy then they are going to provide great care to our patients – it’s all part of a continuous cycle,” Sharron explained.

This article originally appeared in the RCH 2013-4 Quality of Care report, find it here.