HSV continues engagement with regional Victorian health services

HSV is progressing its customer and supplier engagement in regional Victoria, with multiple site visits to the Hume and Albury-Wodonga regions in recent weeks.

HSV’s Procurement team visited Northeast Health Wangaratta and Goulburn Valley Health to meet with health workforce representatives and to tour the loading docks, warehouses, linen rooms and kitchens.

Deputy Director Procurement Sandra Ireland says the visit helped the team learn more about market challenges, particularly in the agency nursing and medical locum categories.

“We discussed the challenges that health services are experiencing in the regional market and how HSV could assist,” Sandra says.

The visits were the first opportunity for HSV teams and regional hospital staff to meet face-to-face since the onset of the pandemic.

“These visits are important and help us to understand more about our customers and how we can work together to improve their experience,” says Sandra.

They are also an opportunity for health services to gain greater insight into HSV’s operations, Sandra explains.

“We get to bring people on the journey with us so they can understand more about how we work and how they can have their voice heard. This helps us focus on achieving outcomes that are aligned with health services' needs.”

Goulburn Valley Health Executive Director Capital Projects, Shane Tremellen said it was great to meet the team.

“It was valuable to discuss our ongoing procurement challenges in person and show the team our key support contracts in action at the Shepparton hospital site,” Shane says.

“We’re looking forward to working more closely with HSV in the future.”

The team also visited Gouge Linen in Shepparton to view the supply process from collection through to wash and fulfilment, and to learn about developments in automation and robotics.

“We learned about the energy efficiencies they’ve implemented and how they repurpose end-of-life linen,” Sandra said.

HSV’s Supply Chain team also travelled to the regions this month, visiting Albury Wodonga Health (AWH) to meet with the warehousing, procurement and finance teams.

HSV Director Logistics Armin Odobasic says discussions centred around current and future logistics challenges, including warehouse capacity improvements at AWH and potential opportunities for HSV to assist with their operations.

“We talked about future plans and how HSV could support them with logistics expertise and data analytics to help improve pick path and distribution centre functionality,” he said.

HSV’s Supply Chain team representatives will visit South West Health in Warrnambool in December.