The Calvary Group is a charitable, not-for-profit, Catholic Health Care Organisation responsible for over 12,000 staff and volunteers, 15 Public and Private Hospitals, 17 Retirement and Aged Care Facilities and a national network of Community Care Centres.
Its mission is to provide quality, compassionate health care to the most vulnerable, including those reaching the end of their life.
Since 2011, Calvary has established and refined its WH&S and Injury Management Systems with financial and people benefits. Calvary implemented a single national WH&S and injury Management System for the entire Calvary Group, aimed at reducing injuries in the workplace, improving staff engagement, reducing workers compensation and insurance costs, whilst significantly improving compliance and governance. In 2013, a Microsoft SharePoint intranet system centralised WH&S Action Plans, giving visibility of all WH&S-related activity across all of the group’s facilities. It also enabled the efficient assignment of tasks and created accountability to follow through on WH&S actions.
Calvary also created centralised libraries of risk assessments and work instructions, so resources could be shared across facilities – saving time not having to constantly reinvent the wheel.
Calvary’s achievements were recognised by SafeWork NSW when Glenn Stewart won the ‘Best Individual Contribution to Workplace Health and Safety’ award. Notably, the award acknowledged Calvary’s reduction in injuries (40% reduction nationally) and a reduction in workers’ compensation premiums.
Calvary has fine-tuned its focus and attention on WH&S and is investing more in WH&S resourcing. As a result, performance is continually improving. The challenge now is to ensure WH&S doesn’t stagnate, remains relevant, and that systems are in place to meet what the future holds.
To that end, Calvary now embraces cutting-edge IT to make WH&S management easier, developing apps, digitising forms and automating workflows. In the not-too-distant future, managing WH&S from a smartphone will be the norm and Calvary will continue to lead the way.
Introducing South Australia’s Largest Private Hospital
Meanwhile, Calvary has an exciting project underway in Adelaide, with the construction of the new Calvary Adelaide Hospital. This hospital will co-locate the services currently provided at Calvary Wakefield and Calvary Rehabilitation hospitals into South Australia’s largest ever private hospital. The construction of the new $300 million facility is well underway with its completion planned in the third quarter 2019.
Calvary has a dedicated project team working on the development and transition from the two existing hospitals to the new site.
The new Calvary hospital in Adelaide is a significant development and an exciting opportunity. There is lots of work to be done, consulting with stakeholders, assessing equipment and fitting out the new facility.
DW Fox Tucker has observed the Calvary story for some time now. We are pleased to see what has been achieved so far, and will watch on with interest the next era of Calvary’s safety journey.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE CALVARY GROUP
Phone: +61 2 9258 1700
Visit: www.calvarycare.org.au
Calvary Group at a glance (2017)
Hospitals
- 217,674 Admissions
- 462,906 Outpatients
- 121,221 Emergency Department presentations
- 4,277 Births
- 113,561 Surgical procedures
Community Care
- 15,600 individual clients
- 9,400 clients receiving a service at any one time
- 771,500 home visits
- 1.8 million hours of care
Retirement Communities
- 29 residents over the age of 100
- 452 residents over the age of 90, 89 of whom live in ILUs
- 711 new admissions
- 433 admissions to residential aged care (excluding respite)
- 242 respite admissions to residential aged care
- 36 moves to ILUs