CHAIRMAN'S MESSAGE- FEBRUARY 2022 |
|
|
| | My Fellow Rotarians and Friends of ROMAC
Happy 2022! I sincerely hope you were able to have some enjoyable and quality time with family and friends over the festive season and managed to stay fit and healthy despite the ongoing challenges presented by the COVID virus.
No doubt, like me, you were - in late November - feeling confident that through climbing vaccination rates and falling COVID cases, life would return to some sort of normality in the new year. Above all, we at ROMAC were certain that we would be able to start bringing in new patients early this year. But, of course, the arrival of the Omicron variant put paid to those plans and we still have no indication of when the Federal Government will permit us to bring in children needing life-saving surgery.
Despite the lockdown and forced stoppage to treating patients, the ROMAC team has been busy behind the scenes and has been working hard to ensure that the organisation stays relevant and viable long into the future. Succession planning is vital to any organisation, and ROMAC is no different, and with a number of key personnel due to step down at the next AGM, identifying and training suitable replacements has been a top priority.
The 'patient-free' period has also allowed Richard Woodburn, our IT specialist, time to update patient records into the medical section (eHR) of the ROMAC database: ROMAC Connect, Richard has provided some details about ROMAC Connect and it's importance to the organisation for your information (please see his article below). In the past, almost every patient's case was well documented, with photos, media reports etc, but there was no centralised collection system, which we now have in place. Many of the early records are still in various folders, shoeboxes, 'holding pens' and other databases on other computers. It is a time consuming process to add these to the eHR and Richard estimates he has about another 50 hours of work to complete the task. Recently retired Regional Chair (now District Chair), Glenys Parton has been doing a similar task for the New Zealand records. The end result will be worth it as we will then have a much more comprehensive database of all patients treated by ROMAC since our inception in 1988. Richard says there are still lots of gaps in the information in eHR, and he is asking for help from host families and Rotary clubs who have been involved in ROMAC over the year to provide him with any records or photographs they may have that he can add to the database.
With many clubs resuming meetings after the Christmas / New Year break, now is an ideal time to schedule a presentation on ROMAC, particularly if you haven't had one for a few years. Our new, professionally produced video, has been well received by those clubs who have seen it and I encourage you to organise for one of our volunteers to present to your club - either in person or via Zoom -in the near future. Contact me via my email chair@romac.org.au or on my mobile 0411 044 691 and I will arrange for the most appropriate person to make the presentation to your members.
Keep safe and stay positive.
PDG Harold Sharp OAM
Chairman |
|
|
|
|
