Page 1796 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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The Medicare Local is locally governed and run. It ensures strong GP, allied health and community engagement through its committees and board structure. By ensuring the establishment of the Medicare Local worked in parallel with the ACT local hospital network, comprising the Canberra Hospital, Calvary public hospital, Clare Holland House and the QEII Family Centre, the ACT government has helped facilitate a close working relationship between the two structures.
Let’s have a look at the vital work of the ACT Medicare Local in our community today from the view which sees people as patients and clients with individual needs, not as heartless consumers.
At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR GENTLEMAN: I was talking about the vital work of ACT Medicare Local in our community. Some of the core functions Medicare Local carry out include making it easier for patients to access the services they need by linking and better coordinating care between local GPs, nursing and other health professionals, hospitals and aged care, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health organisations and community service. They work closely with ACT Health, the local hospital network council and non-government organisations as key partners to make sure primary healthcare services and hospitals work well together for their patients. They identify where the ACT community is missing out on services they might need and looks at ways to address those gaps. They support local primary care providers, such as GPs, practice nurses and allied health professionals, to adopt and meet quality standards. Also, they are accountable to the ACT community to make sure the services are effective and of high quality. And, of course, they coordinate commonwealth-funded primary healthcare initiatives in the ACT.
Further, the ACT Medicare Local has been a high performing Medicare local and a close partner with the ACT government in a number of joint initiatives. The HealthPathways project currently being implemented has funding from ACT Health and Coast City Country General Practice Training. HealthPathways will provide online information to GPs on how to assess and manage medical conditions and how to refer patients to local specialists and services. It will also include information for patients, reference materials and educational resources in line with best practice rolling out in a number of jurisdictions.
The GP aged-care day service currently run under a service funding agreement with ACT Health provides an in-hours locum medical service to people who are homebound or in a residential aged-care facility where their GP is unable to attend. The diabetes link program funded by ACT Health aims to optimise communication and referral pathways between the ACT Health diabetes service and primary care services. In addition, the program provides education to GPs, practice nurses and other relevant health professionals and trainees to better utilise primary care to prevent and manage diabetes.
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