How Queensland Children's Health Doubled Fire Safety Compliance to 86% with PlanSafe®

Overview

Queensland Children’s Health is a quaternary hospital delivering highly specialised care across a large and complex healthcare network on Australia’s east coast – from Taree to Coffs Harbour – and supporting both local and international patients. The hospital is in high demand, handling 46,500 emergency presentations per year.

As the only facility of its kind in the state, there is a strong expectation that operations run smoothly, with minimal disruption to critical clinical environments.

The organisation operates at significant scale, with around 6,500 permanent staff and up to 10,000 when including contractors and volunteers, across 85 sites, all working different shifts. As a teaching hospital, it also manages constant workforce movement, with regular onboarding cycles adding to the complexity, sometimes welcoming over a hundred new doctors every few months.

In this environment, emergency training needs to be consistent, accessible, and easy to manage – without taking time away from patient care.

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The challenge

Emergency training was previously delivered face-to-face, in sessions lasting 90 minutes each, which made it difficult to manage across such a large and operationally critical workforce.

Releasing staff for training was a constant challenge. Coordinating sessions across multiple sites required significant effort, and the process often disrupted day-to-day operations. Completion rates typically sat between 30–40%, reflecting the difficulty of balancing training requirements with clinical priorities.

Tracking compliance was also time-consuming and manual. Reporting relied on paper-based processes, making it difficult to get a clear, up-to-date view of training completion. Generating reports could take six to eight hours to produce, limiting the ability to respond quickly to gaps.

With ongoing staff turnover and frequent onboarding cycles, maintaining consistent, auditable compliance at scale was resource-intensive.

“We’re onboarding 150 to 200 new doctors every few months, so having a system that can keep up with that is critical.”

Tony Dagan, Manager, Fire Safety Advisory & Assurance Unit, Children’s Health Queensland

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The solution

Queensland Children’s Hospital introduced a digital training approach with Locatrix, supported by PlanSafe®, to simplify fire safety induction training and improve compliance at scale.

Centralised building and compliance data ensures training is aligned to each site, while remaining easy to manage across all 85 locations.

Training moved online, reducing training time to around 20 minutes, and allowing staff to complete it when it suited their schedules. The need for coordinating, scheduling and facilitating formal sessions was entirely removed. Integration with the hospital’s learning management system ensured training records were automatically captured and kept up to date at all times.

“Training used to require extensive coordination and facilitation from our side, and take staff around an hour and a half to complete face-to-face. Now staff can complete the training online anytime, from any device, in about 20 minutes. This has made a big difference for staff.”

Tony Dagan, Manager, Fire Safety Advisory & Assurance Unit, Children’s Health Queensland

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See how Locatrix has helped more businesses in the hospital and healthcare industry

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Centralised reporting provided a clear, real-time view of compliance across all sites. Teams could track progress, identify gaps, and follow up quickly, without relying on manual processes.

Integration with PlanStudio® ensures evacuation diagrams and training content remain consistent and up to date across all locations.

The result is a model that scales across a complex and constantly changing workforce, while reducing the burden on both staff and administrators.

“We were looking for something that integrated well, was easy for staff to access, and could be tailored to our environment. But ultimately, it came down to improving visibility of compliance and making things more efficient for our teams. Reporting used to take six or seven hours to pull together. Now we can access what we need almost instantly.”

Tony Dagan, Manager, Fire Safety Advisory & Assurance Unit, Children’s Health Queensland

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Outcomes

The shift to PlanSafe®, with 24/7 online training, delivered measurable improvements across compliance, efficiency, and visibility.

Training completion rates increased from 30–40% to approximately 86%, with a clear path towards the hospital’s goal of +90%. Training time reduced by 83% per staff member – from 90 minutes in person to just 20-30 minutes anywhere – making it significantly easier to complete without disrupting clinical work.

“Before, we were sitting at around 30-40% completion. Now we’re at about 86%, so we’ve more than doubled our compliance.”

Tony Dagan, Manager, Fire Safety Advisory & Assurance Unit, Children’s Health Queensland

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Reporting has also been transformed: what previously took six to seven hours can now be accessed almost instantly, representing a 97% reduction in reporting time and enabling more proactive and reliable management of compliance. This has strengthened confidence in compliance across the organisation, with clear, real-time visibility of training completion and gaps.

At scale, these improvements translate into a meaningful shift in how employees’ time is used every day. The move to online training is equivalent to returning thousands of hours to the workforce to care for patients each year – time that can be redirected towards patient care rather than coordination and administration.

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86% training completion rate

Training time reduced by 83% per staff member

97% reduction in reporting time

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The approach also supports a highly dynamic workforce, including onboarding large cohorts of new staff every few months, without adding operational strain.

“We need to comply with a mix of regulations, including the Building Fire Safety Regulation, Australian Standards and the Health Services Act. Locatrix helps us achieve that with confidence.”

“The experience has been very positive – support has been responsive, and the team has been easy to work with throughout.”

Tony Dagan, Manager, Fire Safety Advisory & Assurance Unit, Children’s Health Queensland

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