Ross Bailie, Menzies School of Health Research
 The National Centre is being established to support primary health care organisations to provide high quality care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The name One21seventy reflects the Centre’s mission to increase life expectancy for Indigenous people beyond one in infancy, 21 in youth, and 70 years in the lifespan. Our aim is to embed state-of-the-art, systematic quality improvement processes that are based on cutting edge international developments in primary health care.
The Centre will provide practical tools and processes to enable health centres to engage in systematic continuous quality improvement cycles. These tools are aligned with evidence based best practice guidelines and reporting and accreditation requirements. They have been shown to be user friendly, and have been used by more than 120 Indigenous primary care organisations over the past five years.
The tools and processes supported by the Centre include: clinical audit tools; an organisational systems assessment tool; training in use of the tools; facilitation of feedback and goal setting; and web-based information and data services for easy data interpretation, reporting and benchmarking.
Current clinical audit tools cover a number of important aspects of primary health care, including major chronic diseases (diabetes, CHD, hypertension, renal disease), preventive care for well adults, maternal health and child health. We are trialling new tools for prevention and management of rheumatic heart disease and mental health. We are also developing tools for health promotion, community environmental health and sexual health. Our Systems Assessment Tool is highly regarded as a primary health care organisational and systems development tool. The tools are designed to be flexible, adaptable and to be customised to meet local needs.
The Centre will offer training programs to support the effective implementation of the tools and continuous quality improvement (CQI) processes. We will also support a network of primary care organisations to promote learning and development in primary care quality improvement.
One21seventy is a not-for-profit organisation set up with the support of the Menzies School of Health Research and the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health. It provides services on a cost-recovery basis. Its advisory board will have a majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander members.
For more information visit <www.one21seventy.org.au/>
|
