Supporting our Bowral laboratory team

September 27, 2022 by Development Team Leave a Comment

Teamwork is key at NSW Health Pathology and it was definitely on show in early 2022, when our staff in Campbelltown, Bankstown and Liverpool hit the road to help their colleagues in Bowral.

Bowral has a small laboratory team which services two hospitals in the Southern Highlands. In March, our Bowral lab faced critical staff shortages and everyone was exhausted. On top of their usual shifts, staff were maintaining the on-call services out of hours, with call-backs a regular occurrence.

The laboratory managers at Bankstown and Campbelltown collaborated with our Operations team to jump into action, deploying staff between three laboratories to provide our Bowral team with some much needed respite.

The operation saw Campbelltown staff provide daily coverage to Bowral laboratory while Bankstown and Liverpool staff backfilled their absences.

Our Bowral team was very grateful to see how willing their colleagues were to help. Many staff members went above and beyond, commuting over 2,000 kms to cover shifts to meet service demands and ensure continuation of high quality, patient-centred services.

Western Sydney researchers unlocking pandemic puzzle to help save lives

September 27, 2022 by Development Team Leave a Comment

NSW Health Pathology’s Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR) genomics team has worked tirelessly through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team has used cutting edge technology and expertise to deliver scientific breakthroughs that have provided the cornerstone of disease detection and management to keep us safe.

Their efforts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have saved thousands of lives, prevented further outbreaks and recently saw the ICPMR team recognised with the NSW Health Secretary’s Award for Integrated Value Based Care.

The ICPMR team’s research made it possible to allow tracing of COVID-19 transmission, fast identification of variants of concern and timely detection of drug resistance in new variants as they emerged during the peak of the pandemic.

We’ve pulled together as a team and undertaken something that hadn’t been done in NSW before to inform pandemic control and responses,” said ICPMR’s genomic epidemiologist, Dr Alicia Arnott.

A video profile of the role of Forensic Pathologist at NSW Health Pathology

September 27, 2022 by Development Team Leave a Comment

A video profile of the role of Forensic Pathologist at NSW Health Pathology and their work in supporting bereaved families and the Coroner.

Forensic Pathology is a highly specialised, and often misunderstood, area of medicine.

At NSW Health Pathology’s Forensic Medicine service, our forensic pathologists support both a bereaved family’s need for answers as well as the Coroner’s role in delivering justice and improving the health and safety of communities across NSW.

In this video you will meet three forensic pathologists who share insights into what their work involves including the compassion and respect shown to families and their relatives who come into the care of Forensic Medicine.

For more information about our Forensic Medicine service including opportunities for medical students and graduates, please visit Careers or email [email protected].

An in depth look at the importance of CT scanning in the Forensic Medicine service

September 27, 2022 by Development Team Leave a Comment

An in depth look at the importance of CT scanning in the Forensic Medicine service and its role in helping to determine the cause of unexpected or unexplained deaths that are referred to the Coroner.

NSW Health Pathology’s Forensic Medicine service works at the direction of the Coroner to provide post-mortem examinations and related testing in the event of unexplained or unexpected deaths.

These post-mortem examinations can only be performed by specialist forensic pathologists who are supported by a highly qualified team that includes radiographers and radiologists.

CT scanning is an essential tool to help determine the cause of death and in this video, radiographer Tony Buxton and Forensic Pathologist Dr Allan Cala discuss how it is used in the Forensic Medicine service.

The Cutting Edge of COVID

September 27, 2022 by Development Team Leave a Comment

The efforts of our Pathogen Genomics team throughout the COVID-19 pandemic saved thousands of lives and prevented further outbreaks.

As the first cases of COVID-19 began to emerge in NSW the NSW Health Pathology pathogen genomics service joined forces with a multidisciplinary team of epidemiologists and researchers to help create a new assay that would illuminate the spread of the virus.

The team employed an innovative laboratory method that was originally used to identify the source of foodborne outbreaks in NSW. They were quickly able to provide early pathogen sequences directly from infected patients then grow the virus in order to map the entire genome.

Incredibly, it took only two weeks for the first genomes to be developed which allowed health experts to link people arriving from overseas to international hotspots. The team used more than 840 samples from COVID positive patients that allowed them to uncover 49 genomic clusters responsible for 91% of early cases.

“I think, at its core, this project was about collaboration. It was about taking a really innovative laboratory method and then pulling together different pieces of health data to think about new ways that we could control a kind of world-changing event as it happened,” said Dr Rebecca Rockett, who was part of the award-winning team.

The important work performed by the pathogen genomics team was shared across state lines as well as internationally in order to battle the rapid spread of the virus as it ignored all borders.

The unprecedented work earned the pathogen genomics team and their partners the NSW Health Secretary’s Award for Integrated Value Based Care earlier this year.

How do you solve a problem like millions of COVID results? You call Liz.

September 27, 2022 by Development Team Leave a Comment

NSW Health Pathology’s Liz Geddes was instrumental in pioneering the development of our award-winning COVID-19 Results Service that automatically delivers COVID-19 test results.

When the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, NSW Health Pathology was thrust into an international health emergency of epic proportions.

Many of our incredible staff stepped up to meet the many challenges being thrown our way, including Liz Geddes, who led the development of an SMS service and call centre to deliver results direct to patients. Both are a first for NSW Health Pathology.

And not just a few results, more than 7.8‑million and counting…

Liz’s outstanding work earned her a finalist position for NSW Health Awards Collaborative Staff Member of the Year in 2021.

These vital new services needed to meet two critical challenges:

How to deliver negative test results faster than seven days or more and reduce anxiety and unnecessary home isolation, and
Relieve laboratory staff and public hospital staff from calling the up to 99 per cent of patients who had a negative result.

This required hours of phone calls and diverted frontline health staff from their critical patient care roles.

The COVID-19 SMS Results Service and Call Centre was developed, piloted and implemented in two weeks, by a core team of technical, clinical and specialist ICT experts – and led by Liz.

Stakeholders across NSWHP, Ministry of Health, local health districts, clinicians, and patients also played an important role.

Launched in April 2020, the SMS Service has saved an estimated 652,000 hours or the equivalent of 81,500 health worker shifts.

Under Liz’s management and in collaboration with partners, the service continues to evolve.

Find out more here.

Supporting our Bowral laboratory team

Teamwork is key at NSW Health Pathology and it was definitely on show in early 2022, when our staff in Campbelltown, Bankstown and Liverpool hit the road to help their colleagues in Bowral.

NSW Health Pathology’s Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research (ICPMR) genomics team has worked tirelessly through the COVID-19 pandemic.

A video profile of the role of Forensic Pathologist at NSW Health Pathology and their work in supporting bereaved families and the Coroner.

An in depth look at the importance of CT scanning in the Forensic Medicine service and its role in helping to determine the cause of unexpected or unexplained deaths that are referred to the Coroner.

The efforts of our Pathogen Genomics team throughout the COVID-19 pandemic saved thousands of lives and prevented further outbreaks.

NSW Health Pathology’s Liz Geddes was instrumental in pioneering the development of our award-winning COVID-19 Results Service that automatically delivers COVID-19 test results.

Connect with us