Brilliance box brings joy in Westmead emergency

A ‘brilliance box’ introduced in Westmead Hospital’s emergency department is ensuring hardworking staff feel appreciated.

Staff specialist Laura Brown created the physical ‘brilliance box’ to encourage team members to leave each other positive written feedback about their performance.

Laura said the aim was to create a culture of gratitude and appreciation.

“Staff members nominate someone and post the form in the brilliance box which is kept in the emergency department,” Laura said.

“The nominator writes who they are nominating, a brief description of why, and can also leave their own name if they want to, or it can be submitted anonymously.

“About once a fortnight I open the box, collate the nominations, and send the feedback via email to the person nominated, and also to their supervisor.

“I also send a list of all the people nominated to the ED secretary, who includes the list in our clinical notifications document, which is emailed to all our staff and is read aloud at our morning briefing every morning in the ED.”

Laura said the box has been an enormous success so far.

“The people nominated are often genuinely delighted to have received positive feedback,” Laura said.

“Nominees have been incredibly diverse, including medical and nursing staff, wardspeople, clerical staff, cleaning staff, and even people from departments outside the emergency department, some of which include intensive care unit, anaesthetics, geriatrics, cardiology, dental and radiology.

“The heads of department from these areas have also sent me wonderful feedback, praising the initiative.”

Laura hopes other departments will follow her team’s lead.  

“It would be lovely to think that a seed planted by Westmead Hospital could grow and make a really positive impact.”