Office and Administration -  HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR  

Better Cleaning of Hospital Equipment could cut patient infections by one third and save money - should ALL Australian hospitals act on the research findings?

McHospitals - should we have them?
  
Big Data, Better Hospitals

Better Cleaning of Hospital Equipment could cut patient infections by one third and save money - should ALL Australian hospitals act on the research findings? Research Assignment

Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Critical and creative thinking
Australian Curriculum General Capability: Numeracy
Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Ethical Understanding

Philosophy

Cooperative Learning Activity

Teacher

You will need to buy Glow2Show for the class. You will also need to demonstrate to the class how to wash their hands thoroughly. It is usually a good idea initially to get the class to wash their hands after the gel to show them how they need to wash more thoroughly!

You will also need to have an ultraviolet light - preferably a torch to show up the gel at the end of washing.

1. Form a group of 3 - 5 students and read the following article from

The Conversation 11 April 2025

2. Work out the cost savings per person? Money wise? What about emotionally to the families who have lost a love one?

3.

Research the article - find out which hospital undertook this research. Should there be further research in other hospitals before specific cleaning is introduced in all hospitals in Australia? Why? Why not? Give reasons.

4. Should cleaning staff have access to the gel showing whether a particular piece of equipment is clean or not?

5. Work out the cost of cleaning, deaths, cost to the hospital in the case of infections if ALL Australian hospitals were converted to this cleaning system.

6. Test the cleaning!

a. Each student is to put Glow2Show gel on their hands.

b. Wash your hands as you usually do.

c. Put your hands under the ultraviolet light. What did you discover?

d. Try washing again, being mindful of where you missed before. How many times did you have to wash your hands before they were really clean (NO Glow!).

e. Gather up this information from the class and put into a graph.

f. Now that you know how to clean your hands, will you do this cleaning in the future more thoroughly being conscious of how much you need to clean?

6.

Should ALL hospitals in Australia have specialised cleaners? Why? Why not? Give reasons.

McHospitals - should we have them?

 Primary Middle  Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Critical and creative thinking
Australian Curriculum General Capability: Personal and social capability
Australian Curriculum General Capability: Literacy

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Ethical Understanding

Philosophy

Cooperative Learning Activity

1. In pairs or a group of three students, divide up and read the following articles:

The Guardian 26 February 2018	ABC News 25 July 2017
Good Food 25 April 2017	Sydney Morning Herald 9 February 2017
The Conversation 11 December 2014	The Conversation 26 March 2014

2. In the role as a Hospital Administrator, plot the advantages and disadvantages of having fast food outlets within the hospital. Share with your group and collate all your responses. Discuss as a class.

3. How do you think you can balance healthy food available in the hospital (including the hospital kitchens) and the "wants" of the patients? Discuss.

4. How would you [or should you?] regulate the greater use of UberEats within the hospital for both the staff and the patients? What are the major points and questions that need addressing? Discuss.

5.

"McHospitals - should we have them?"

Discuss how you would either

• faze out these outlets and what would you replace them with? How?

• promote the healthy aspects of these outlets and justify to the hospital board your decision

Big Data, Better Hospitals

 Secondary

Australian Curriculum General Capability: Numeracy 
Cooperative Learning Activity

1. What has been your experience or the experience of your family of going to hospital? Sports injuries on a Saturday afternoon? What were the wait times? Discuss with a partner.

2. The Patient Admission and Prediction Tool (PAPT) was developed at the CSIRO Australian eHealth Research Centre in partnership with Queensland Health, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology to cut hospital waiting times. Read the following article from the CSIRO about their PAPT development.

3. Answer the following questions:

• When was the PAPT developed?

• What was the reasoning behind the tool?

• Was it possible to cut hospital waiting times?

• Have all Australian hospitals adopted this tool? Why not?

4. View the following video from ABC Education: Big Data, Better Hospitals [a repeat from the video inserted in the CSIRO article but more focussed]

2. The questions you are asked to consider are:

• What types of calculation or mathematical tools does the hospital staff use to make their predictions?

• Do you think that the Patient Admission Prediction Tool [PAPT] generally makes accurate estimates?

• For what purposes might the hospital administrators use these predictions?

• How important are these for helping patients? (Source: ABC Education: Big Data, Better Hospitals)

• CSIRO have estimated that if PAPT was rolled out nationally, it could deliver productivity gains of up to $23 million in direct cost savings from improved bed usage, reduced elective surgery cancellations and patient health benefits.

  • Using the data from "Did You Know" on the Info page for the Hospital Administrator  - calculate the savings per hospital. 

  • What do you think the saving of $23M should be spent on to help patients in hospitals?
    

Discuss with a partner and then with a group of 10 students.