Greetings! The past quarter has been a time of steady progress in the development of IFIC Australia (IFICA).
Following on from what was a highly successful IFIC conference in Utrecht in May, a teleconference meeting of the Partners was held in June while, expressions of interest from new partners are being followed up, IFICA Webinars commenced and planning for an Accelerated Learning Program during the week of Oct 29th this year has been advanced.
The evaluation of Central Coast Services and Project Integrate framework which was presented by Hazel Dalton and David Perkins in Utrecht lays the foundation for further work of this kind. In association with case studies prepared by Partners such will help robust systems of integrated healthcare to progress in Australia. See some of the conference highlights here.
The Partners meeting in June covered a variety of topics including the launch of the Integrated Care Search (ICS) filter (thanks to Central Coast LHD and Flinders Filters) discussion about IFICA making a response to the Productivity Commissions Report and the circulation of a case study template to help inform IFICA activities. The template can be completed from a project, program or region perspective and is part of our commitment to Partners to begin to create a knowledge base and a picture of what’s happening in Australia. The aim is that these cases will be shared in an open access format on the IFICA website.
Robin Miller (Deputy Director, Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham) visited the CRRMH in early July, facilitating two greatly appreciated workshops in collaboration with Western NSW PHN. The first focused on implementation lessons for integrated primary care; and the second on value based commissioning of health and social services. We thank Western NSW PHN for their financial support of these two workshops.
We’re now looking forward to our next Webinar taking place on 21 September “Frameworks for Assessing Integrated Care: The Project INTEGRATE Framework”, the next face to face Partners meeting on 9 November and of course the Accelerated Learning Programme to be held in Orange from 29 October to 2 November.
In the next newsletter we hope to be able to report on progress with case studies from Partners and reflections on what’s happened with the Productivity Commission’s review of challenges for Integrated Care in Australia.
All in all, lots happening and so good to be part of the drive towards improving person-centred integrated healthcare in Australia!
Professor Peter McGeorge is a Consultant Psychiatrist in the Universities NSW and Notre Dame (Sydney) and is the Chair of IFIC Australia