SPEAK Project on the move

The SPEAK Project is aiming to increase staff capability, improve hospital systems and processes, and improve healthcare experiences for people with disability.

Our improvements include:

Picture of the front of the Emergency department at The Alfred at night. The photo is shot from the opposite side of commercial road and there is an ambulance in the foreground.

Disability Liaison Officer (DLO) service

The service pilot commenced in the Emergency and Trauma Centre at The Alfred on October 2022 and was funded until August 2024. The service operated 7 days a week from 8:30am to 4:30pm. The Disability Liaison Officers (DLOs) supported staff and patients with:

  • Outlining a person's disability supports such as - communication needs, sensory needs, personal care, and mobility needs and helping staff to implement the strategies in ED
  • Communication supports - when it may fail, comes to a halt, or won't begin verbally
  • Improving hearing capabilities of patients with hearing loss to assist communication
  • Gaining behaviour support and care plans from Supported Disability Accommodation services
  • De-escalating heightened behaviours to reduce stress for patient and reduce code greys
  • Sensory support for patients
  • Psychosocial support
  • Discharge planning - ensuring the patient knows what is happening next
Picture of staff training. Diverse group of people are sitting in a class environment with a hand raised.

Staff training on disability

We have developed an online course for all healthcare staff. The key areas of focus are:

  • Rights of people with disabilities
  • Models of disability
  • The healthcare experience for people with disabilities
  • Reasonable Adjustments
  • Resources and support staff can access

We are currently evaluating the online course and will soon make it available to other health services to share with their staff.

We are also developing a face-to-face training session to complement the online module for clinical staff who provide healthcare to patients.

Picture of two hands on a blue background one thumbs up and thumbs down.

Better ways to give feedback

We have identified access barriers and reviewed current feedback processes at the hospital. We are designing and testing feedback systems with the Patient Experience and Consumer Engagement team and consumers to make feedback processes more accessible.

Improvements to Alfred Health’s feedback webpage includes:

  • Video explaining how to give feedback in Auslan with audio and captions
  • Information about how to give feedback in Easy English
  • Invitation to request individualised support to give feedback
  • National Relay Service numbers added
  • Information about how feedback is handled
  • Examples of how feedback improves care
Provide feedback
Picture of electronic medical record.

Data Systems

  • We are working to improve how we identify patients with disability and/or support needs.
  • We have co-designed questions that nurses now ask in the Emergency and Trauma Centre (E&TC) and during inpatient admissions.
  • We can add a disability alert to patient's electronic medical records.
  • We are looking at other ways of improving how we document and share information about patient's disability and/or support needs in their electronic medical records.
Picture of a graph.

Evaluation

As we trial different activities within the overall SPEAK Project, we continue to evaluate whether they work or not. We are using patient, support person and staff surveys & interviews, and looking at our hospital data to evaluate the success of the SPEAK Project.

See our evaluation report findings