"Book 'em Danno"

The John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts is located on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. It was the first federally funded performing arts institution in the United States and was officially opened in 1971.

On the north side of the centre is the Eisenhower Theatre. It hosts plays, musicals, operas, ballet and contemporary dance performances and can accommodate 1142 theatre goers.

Coincidentally, 1142 is exactly the number of theatre goers who were accommodated by Mater Private Hospital Brisbane (MPHB) in July. That’s a new record level of activity and an outstanding performance by the theatre team.

Add to that the work conducted through endoscopy and our cardiac catheter labs and the number swells to 1823 procedures undertaken by the hospital’s procedural suites.

To put it into context, if we assume that an average TV sleuth can manage one case per televised episode, then the entire career caseload for Jessica Fletcher, “Murder She Wrote” would be 264 cases.

In one month, the operating suites at MPHB saw more cases than were seen by the viewing audience of “Columbo”, “Murder She Wrote”, “Magnum PI”, “The Rockford Files”, “21 Jump Street”, “Hawaii 5-0” and “Quincy” for their entire televised career combined.

To extend the analogy, one might suggest that “The A-Team” at MPHB have achieved something “That’s Incredible” and established a “Dynasty” as the leading team in the game.

So, what’s with the bad eighties TV references?

I thought it might be nice for the folks at Mater Private Hospital Redland (MPHR) to be reminded of the 80s since it has been so long since they have had a patient satisfaction rating outside of the 90s. In fact, the lowest satisfaction rating achieved by MPHR since 2006 saw them slip to the 94th percentile.

It should come as no surprise then that in July, MPHR picked up an Australian Business Award for “Service Excellence”. I am extremely proud to be associated with this excellent facility and gratefully acknowledge the exceptional efforts of Cheryl Clayton and her team in continuing this success.