Wallaby Ward, or Hospital in the Home, saw a 21 per cent increase in referrals in 2013/14 significantly contributing to patient access and flow at the RCH.

The RCH@Home Department consists of multiple programs: Family Choice, School Care, Home Care, Post-Acute Care and Hospital in the Home (HITH). All in-patient wards at the RCH are given animal identifiers; in 2013 HITH was given the identifier ‘Wallaby’, to reflect how the ward operates just like any other in the hospital.

Wallaby allows the provision of acute care to RCH patients in the comfort of their own home; surrounded by parents, siblings and friends. Whilst at home children are visited and cared for by a team of qualified RCH nursing and allied health staff who communicate regularly with their primary treating medical unit. Children and their families may also be involved in tele-health sessions with their medical unit or be visited by the Wallaby registrar, to ensure that they are receiving the best care.

“The children seem to be happier, they seem to recover more quickly,” Wallaby Registered Nurse Deborah Jenkins said. “They are more active within their home; they have normal interactions with their siblings and go to school.”

Caroline Ivory‘s son Aidan is a Wallaby patient.

“I can’t see any change in the level of care that we receive, whether we are at home or in the hospital. I think he actually recuperates better at home than in hospital,” she said.

In 2013/14 the Wallaby team conducted a multi-pronged campaign to raise awareness within the hospital and address barriers that may have prevented children from being referred to Wallaby Ward.

“In the last year RCH staff have recognised Wallaby as a fully functioning ward, like any other ward in the hospital,” wallaby Nurse Unit Manager Brenda Savill said.

The team conducted a ‘Consultant Survey’, reviewing RCH’s in-patient wards and uncovering the barriers preventing patients from being referred to Wallaby. Wallaby staff then focussed on addressing those barriers with the hospital’s medical teams. Since then

Wallaby Ward has seen a 21 percent increase in admissions.

“We’re always getting new patients groups, which is really exciting,” Brenda said. “We’re always asking staff and patients to challenge us. We’ve asked staff to tell us what they need, even if they think it’s unfeasible, just to see if see if we can accommodate it and improve our services.”

“I think we’ve become more aware of what the hospital needs and we’ve tried to resource that and worked with different teams, for example we’ve started working with the Complex Care team to see how we can help their patient group, so those children are not coming in and out of hospital all the time,” Brenda explained.

“Wallaby has really helped us move patients from the acute phase of their care in the hospital, to supporting them at home with their families and loved ones,” Deputy CEO John Stanway said. “This has had a very significant impact on improving appropriate discharge rates and helping patient flow throughout the hospital.”

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