Enabled by Workplace, together we care, learn, discover and innovate
Eastern Health is one of Melbourne’s largest metropolitan health services. They provide a range of emergency, surgical, medical and general healthcare services, including maternity, palliative care, mental health, drug and alcohol, residential care, community health and statewide specialist services. Eastern Health operates from dozens of sites across 21 locations, includes seven major facilities and three emergency departments, with a workforce of approximately 10,000.
As a healthcare provider, Eastern Health is an organisation that with the outbreak of COVID-19 needed a way to connect with all employees in a timely and efficient manner in a fast evolving and changing environment. While email is in place, this was not efficiently communicating to people as rapidly as the pandemic landscape was changing. For many employees, accessing email is not standard practice and an unnatural daily part of their routine. As a consequence, important information was not readily reaching the front line where it was needed more critically than ever before.
Eastern Health’s Communications Team had long been looking for a solution, and with the announcement of the pandemic, the urgency to find a solution increased significantly.
In April 2020, after only two weeks of preparation, Eastern Health successfully launched Workplace from Facebook with the support of POMT. In the first week of deployment 3,000 employees activated their accounts and 99% of these employees are actively engaging in conversations daily.
“We are delighted to see our people using the platform as an essential tool in keeping across critical COVID-19 updates as well as other essential information, and connecting with colleagues across disciplines and locations.
"Workplace has allowed teams to remain distant, yet closer than ever before. This has enabled our teams to be more agile and responsive in managing the complexities of the current environment" said Beth Excell, Associate Director, Communications, Eastern Health.
Eastern Health’s Director of Communications, Ben Davies, adds, "Workplace for Eastern Health has altered the way we communicate and connect with one another. It has provided a more readily accessible channel to celebrate, acknowledge and check in on our people"
