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11 Jul 2012, by Informa Insights
We are very happy that Charmayne Thompson, Operations Manager Perioperative Services, The Royal Women’s Hospital had some time to spare to answer a few questions for us. She will be speaking at the 4th Annual Operating Theatre Management Conference 2012 in August in Sydney.
1. You have worked as an OR Manager in both private and public hospitals. What are some of the similar challenges faced by managers on both sides?
– Operating room management whether in the private or the public sector is about effective resource management.
– Material resource management and staff management are critical to the success in your role.
– Challenges that all OR managers face is the ever diversifying nature of our roles.
– We are now changing cultures, improving efficiencies, managing risk, mentoring, improving teamwork and improving communications between our surgical and anaesthetic colleagues.
– Our diverse key stakeholder base makes for a very challenging and rewarding environment for OR managers who are passionate about making a difference to their departments and their organisations.
2. What are some of the key benefits you feel you have achieved from mentoring your OR team?
– Mentoring benefits both the mentor and the mentored. In this informal transmission of knowledge, both parties are involved in a face to face relationship in which ideas and concepts are shared.
– This positive exchange allows sharing of concepts and experiences that are relevant to both personal and professional behaviours/skills.
– I see this psychosocial support as essential in the development of any team.
– My team learn about the successes and failures I have experienced as a manager in a safe open environment.
– I have found mentoring of all levels of staff, like the leadership of a team to be a great privilege.
3. As an Operations Manager Perioperative Services, how much do clinical governance considerations affect your role?
– Clinical governance in perioperative services is much bigger than my role. Clinical governance is about ensuring buy in from all levels from executive to clinician to non clinician.
– The safety culture of an organisation is critical to the role and effectiveness of clinical governance.
– My role is to ensure that all staff under the umbrella of perioperative services are informed of, and are actively involved in safety and quality initiatives.
– Through the chain of communication my role then reports any safety and quality issues to key stakeholders.
4. You are covering two topics at the forthcoming 4th Annual Operating Theatre Management Conference; Looking at the contemporary role of the Operating Suite Manager, and Risk managing and human factors in healthcare from an OR perspective. What will be the highlights of each discussion?
– The opening presentation at this year’s conference “The contemporary role of the operating suite manager” will allow registrants to see how far this critical role has come.
– We now have challenges and responsibilities that previously we perhaps did not.
– This presentation is designed to help new managers understand their role and responsibilities in the perioperative environment.
– We will discuss staff and material resource management within the operating room in an ever changing health care environment.
– The impact and usefulness of mentoring as a management tool will be discussed.
– You will hear about collaboration within and external to perioperative services to integrate systems and processes with the perioperative environment.
– You will have the opportunity to hear an overview of the lessons that we as operating room managers have learned about leadership and management in our complex environment.
– My second presentation of the conference is focusing on HUMAN FACTORS in the OR.
– Human factors encompass all those factors that can influence people and their behaviour.
– In a work context, human factors are the environmental, organisational and job factors, and individual characteristics which influence behaviour at work (NHS)
– This presentation will detail these human factors specific to the operating room.
– As we work in a restricted environment our interactions with each other and the ever diversifying technology around us is critical to efficient and safe patient care.
– I will focus on our ability as leaders to influence our staff to minimise the risk in our operating rooms to both themselves and our patients
– The importance on strong Clinical governance locally and organisation wide will be discussed.
– Experiences of incident management and follow up from an experienced OR managers view will also be covered.
If you’d like more information on the conference, check out the website here: The 4th Annual Operating Theatre Management Conference 2012
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