CEO Trent Watson: The year in review

Ethos Health year in review

Ethos Health year in review: This past year has been an exciting one for us, one that feels like a turning point from some tough years following the mining downturn. This turnaround is testament to our customers and the Ethos team. Both being critical to what we achieve as a business!

At the start of the year, we planned to open an expanded clinic at Lake Macquarie Specialist Centre, launch the RESHAPE Healthy Weight Initiative Implementation guide with the NSW Minerals Council, launch our new Fatigue Management App (FatigueTech) and continue to innovate our service offering across our products. Whilst we haven’t released the FatigueTech App, we have managed to achieve our other strategic goals… and more. Here’s a little taste of Ethos Health for 2017 and what to look forward to in 2018!

Clinical Services

Highlights for our Clinical Services division include the opening of the expanded premises at the Lake Macquarie Specialty Centre with the capable physio team of Dave Naylor, Chris Morton and Elliot Meers. Our new collaboration with The Hunter Cancer Centre and the C-Fit program is also expanding with more people with cancer realising the benefits of exercise during their treatment with our exercise physiologist Benn West. We also have ongoing relationships with a number of sporting clubs, with our physiotherapists attending games, providing access to our walk-in recovery clinics on Monday mornings, access to the Lake Macquarie Private Hospital (LMPH) Emergency on weekends, as well as, our treatment clinics at Newcastle and Gateshead. The good work our team does in this area is highlighted by one of our physios, Bronwyn Vaughan, being appointed as the Newcastle Jets W-League physio for the 2017 season. Well done Bron! We have also now taken delivery of our NEW Inbody Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) machine. It offers a standardised approach to analysing body composition, which is a rapid, practical, minimally invasive and relatively inexpensive instrument to analyse body composition of individuals. This will be available for individual clients who come to our clinic, as well as workplace clients.

Workplace Services

Our Workplace Services division has definitely observed some buoyancy in the market with greater demand for our health and lifestyle services (Healthy Mates), manual handling (MoveSAFE) and fatigue (Fatigue First Aid) services. One of the highlights this year was the role we played in the development and launch of the NSW Minerals Industry RESHAPE Healthy Weight Initiative Implementation guide at this year’s NSW Minerals Council Health and Safety conference. This event will always be memorable as Ethos Health won the ‘People’s Choice’ award for our conference stand and one of our long-term clients (Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group) was awarded the highly coveted NSW Minerals Council Health Award for their Bounce Health & Wellbeing Program. Watch this space for the release of a number of new or renewed workplace services product offerings in 2018.

Learn more: NSW Minerals Council Health and Safety conference

Operational Excellence

We strive for operational excellence at Ethos Health and I believe it is noteworthy to mention operational improvements and staff professional development. Electronic medical notes has been a long-term project for the organisation and with the introduction of a new staff member (James Morris) to our team we have seen the project expedited. The aim is for our dietitians to be keeping all notes electronically by Christmas. This initiative will bring a range of efficiencies for our staff and value to our clients experience at Ethos Health, and will be expanded to our other health professionals in the New Year. The journey to improve is never over for our staff either with a range of professional development activities undertaken this year including Cert IV Training and Assessment, Cert IV in Work Health & Safety, Cert IV Accounting, Cert IV Human Resource, First Aid and CPR, Leadership & Management, All in the Family and Diabetes refresher training.

Our People

This year we have farewelled two long-term employees Liam McCudden (Dietitian) and Sam Meredith (Administrator) after seven and nine years, respectively. We thank them for their contribution to the Ethos team and wish them all the best for the future. Conversely, we have welcomed three new staff members. Elliot Meers joins our Clinical Services Physio team; James Morris who will share his time as a Clinical Services Dietitian and Workplace Services Human Factors Consultant; and Nick Davies who will join our Workplace Services team as an Industrial Physiotherapist. Three of our staff have also clocked up the milestone of 10 years working with Ethos Health (Maryanne Hayes, Karen Barnett and Chris Morton). A special thanks to these three for their commitment and contribution to the organisation throughout these years. So much for 5 to 7 careers in a lifetime, when you work in a great organisation it is longer…that is my story and I am sticking to it!

Perhaps the most significant HR item is a changing of the guard. Mark Williams, one of the founders of Ethos Health is leaving the organisation and moving back to Mollymook where he grew up to be closer to his extended family. He will be greatly missed as a colleague, friend and highly regarded Industrial Physiotherapist. Our best wishes go to Mark and his family with their move.

Learn more: Mark Williams departure

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe Christmas and New Year.

I am looking forward to a break with family, but am also looking forward to 2018 to build on what has been achieved in 2017!

Trent

PS. Came across this little gem the other day so thought I would share it… If we think of everything we have to do, we feel overwhelmed. If we do the one thing we need to do, we make progress.

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