Appendix 8


Appendix 8

Medicare Locals—examples of services and programs

The following information has been drawn from evidence provided to the committee and Medicare Local websites.

New South Wales

Murrumbidgee Medicare Local[1]
  • Aboriginal health
  • After hours
  • Aged care
  • Anetnatal shared Care
  • Professional Development services for health practitioners in the region
  • eHealth including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records
  • Healthy Community Initiative
  • Healthy Lifestyle Program
  • HealthPathways
  • Immunisation
  • Integrated and Coordinated Services
  • Integrated Allied Health Services
  • Integrated Chronic Disease Program
  • Mental Health
  • Osteoporosis Fracture Prevention Service
  • Otitis Media
  • Parkinson's Support Nurse
  • Pitstop (Men's health service)
  • Smoking cessation
  • Refugee health
  • Rural Health Outreach Fund
  • Town Tracks (health program for rural Australians with low physical activity)
  • Workforce
North Coast New South Wales Medicare Local[2]
  • North Coast NSW Medicare Local co-ordinate a range of Aboriginal health programs and services across the North Coast:
  • Bulgalwena General Practice
  • Jullums Lismore Aboriginal Medical Service
  • Care Coordination and Supplementary Services (CCSS)
  • Closing the Gap
  • After Hours Primary Care to incentivise and support GPS providing after hours services.
  • Continuing Professional Development by supporting professional development for a range of primary health providers.
  • Copernican Inversion Services (a breakfast meeting showcase of the heath care community).
  • eHealth including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records.
  • Healthy North Coast: an online hub to provide health advice to the North Coast region (including exercise and nutrition).
  • Supporting immunisation providers on the North Coast.
  • PITCH (Practical Ideas to Change Healthcare) – innovation and creativity in health services.
  • Wrapped around Support for Practitioners and Providers (supporting greater co-ordination and integration of primary health care services).
  • Aboriginal Health Services.
  • Headspace Lismore.
  • Mid North Coast Specialist Outreach Clinic.
  • NewAccess (personal coaching).
  • Nimbin Medical Centre.
  • Northern Rivers Family Care Centre.
  • Tarmons House Mental Health Service (Lismore).
  • Winsome Health Clinic.
  • North Coast Allied Health Association – a single organisation for allied health professionals in North Coastal area of NSW
  • Regional Aboriginal health plan
  • Regional Mental health plan
  • Regional Aged care Plan
  • Palliative care services
Southern New South Wales Medicare Local[3]
  • Aboriginal health services including:
  • Koori health checks (free health checks in a local general practice
  • Koori Diabetes Days (free diabetes monitoring and treatment)
  • Koori Boois (Mums and bubs clinic and playgroup)
  • School clinic visits (clinic style health check services for Aboriginal school students)
  • Butt out Boondah (tobacco cessation and support)
  • Deadly Dads (promotion of fatherhood and grandfatherhood)
  • Living strong (healthy lifestyle programs)
  • Coordinated Care and Supplementary Services (chronic medical condition management)
  • Mental Health programs, including
  • Cool Kids (10 week school based childhood anxiety program)
  • Chilled (high school anxiety program)
  • Study without stress (Year 12 stress management)
  • Mental Health First Aid (support for patients developing mental illness)
  • Be There Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training (competency based suicide prevention training course)
  • HealthPathways
  • Southern New South Wales Partners in Recovery (mental health treatment and community based support)
  • Youth health services, including
  • General youth health
  • Alcohol and drugs
  • Cancer screening and treatment
  • Healthy eating and physical activity
  • Mental health
  • Safety (driving, partying, bullying and online) and violence
  • Sexual health
  • Sexuality
  • Smoking
  • Young carers
  • HEAL, a program for overweight, not physically active or at high risk of diabetes or cardiovascular
  • Foot care services in Eurobodalla and Yass
  • Population health services

Queensland

Central Queensland Medicare Local[4]
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health
  • Accreditation of health services
  • After Hours Care services
  • Cardiovascular disease advice and management
  • Chronic condition management
  • Diabetes management
  • eHealth including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records
  • Healthy living program
  • Immunisation
  • Mental health
  • Palliative care
  • Patient opinion and feedback
  • Physical activity
  • Practice management
  • Preventative health
  • Refugee health
  • Respiratory disease
  • Telehealth services
  • Women's and children's health

South Australia

Central Adelaide and Hills Medicare Local[5]
  • After Hours Care grants, incentives and projects including the Adelaide Hills Aged Care After Hours Project and the Community Awareness Raising Project targeting culturally and linguistically diverse communities;
  • Aged Care programs including improved inter-agency collaboration and service integration and in falls prevention, medication management, and oral health;
  • Australian Primary Care Collaboratives Program (Quality Improvement Program) which is providing independent accreditation standard for GPs;
  • coordinating Closing the Gap (Indigenous Health) services and activities including the care coordination program;
  • coordinating a quality improvement project that focussed on improving outcomes for patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease,
  • programs to improve childhood immunisation rates
  • a number of Mental Health programs including Access to Allied Psychological Services, Partners in Recovery, Beyond Blue New Access (an early intervention telephone counselling service for mental health), and headspace.
Country North South Australia Medicare Local[6]
  • After hours
  • Aboriginal health (and Closing the Gap)
  • eHealth, including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records
  • Mental health
  • Partners in Recovery
North Adelaide Medicare Local[7]
  • Aboriginal health
  • Chronic disease projects
  • Mental health
  • After hours
  • Nursing and Immunisation
  • eHealth, including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records
  • Largest provider of clinical mental health services in the region – where there are few private providers and high disadvantage
  • 11 mental health programs providing clinical therapeutic interventions, individual and group across the age range and diagnostic criteria – delivered over 24000 occasions of service this year
  • high quality and efficient services in Mental Health and Aboriginal Health
  • build health literacy, promotion, early intervention and client empowerment into every program delivered
  • services under Closing the Gap to ensure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples can exercise choice, care coordination, empowerment and self-management
  • ensure that General Practice has access to assistance in providing culturally appropriate services – providing 5 sessions of cultural awareness training to our service providers
  • implemented a new model of After Hours Incentive funding –with 100% uptake from General Practice

Tasmania

Tasmanian Medicare Local[8]
  • services to patients with complex chronic conditions (HealthPathways program); and streamlined discharged care program, which looks at streamlined processes for discharge, to prevent avoidable readmissions and ensure avoidable admissions initially;
  • successful exercise treatment initiative, which is aimed at improving community management of chronic disease;
  • TML is partnering NGOs to address smoking rates across the whole Tasmanian population;
  • a program to minimise the harmful alcohol and drug use amongst young Tasmanians through a partnership with one of the local youth agencies in Tasmania and through Headspace;
  • access to fresh fruit and food and with healthy eating at the community level;
  • partner agency in Partners in Recovery mental health program;
  • involvement in the mental health nursing initiative;
  • access to Allied Psychological Services mental health program on a statewide basis;
  • services for the Indigenous community in the mental health space;
  • medical services for refugees; and
  • work to improve health literacy at the service provider level;
  • funding GPs for the comprehensive delivery and support for delivery of community accessible after hours care;
  • GP Assist program which supports rural GPs to avoid the impost of 24-hour, seven-day-a-week after-hours care requirement;
  • collaboration with the university's establishment and embedding of the virtual Tasmanian Academic Health Science Precinct approach to reform of the health services research sector;
  • working with the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the University of Tasmania to make better use of high-end technology to have work happen in patients' own homes in partnership with them.

Victoria

Barwon Medicare Local[9]
  • Aboriginal health services, including:
  • Closing the Gap
  • Indigenous Chronic Disease (providing support to the health sector and better access to health care by Indigenous Australians)
  • Indigenous PIP (a gateway service to which patients can access services through the Closing the Gap program)
  • Advance Care Planning (future treatment options and Advance Care Plan making)
  • After Hours care
  • Aged Care
  • Allied health networks
  • Cancer and Palliative Care Programs
  • Collaborative programs (a system of improving health care through shared learning, peer support, training, education and support systems.)
  • Diabetes managements program
  • Docs and Teens (youth access to health services)
  • Immunisation services
  • Life scripts
  • Medicare information and support programs
  • Mental health
  • Paediatric health
Bayside Medicare Local[10]
  • Aboriginal health
  • After hours
  • Aged care
  • Chronic disease management
  • Clinical services
  • eHealth including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records
  • Family and child health
  • Family violence
  • Mental health
Loddon Mallee Murray Medicare Local[11]
  • Aboriginal health and Closing the Gap
  • After hours
  • Allied Health
  • Autism and developmental disorders
  • eHealth, including developing and maintaining Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records
  • Immunisation programs
  • Mental Health
  • Movement disorders
  • Otitis Media

Western Australia

Perth South Coastal Medicare Local[12]
  • the procurement of after-hour services, which have been brought to the southern parts of the Medicare Local for the first time;
  • strong chronic disease programs;
  • strong mental health programs;
  • programs for low socio-economic groups available at no- or low-gap cost to members of the community;
  • diabetes education scholarship program, which pays course fees at Curtin University for diabetes educators who are working as practice nurses in a local practice; and
  • services across mental health, Aboriginal health, after-hours general practice and chronic conditions.
Goldfields-Midwest Medicare Local[13]
  • securing dieticians, diabetic educators, physiotherapists and other various allied health services to communities who previously did not have access to these services;
  • improving after-hours services in both major regional towns of Geraldton and Kalgoorlie.
  • improving the health and wellbeing of older persons in the community, or living in residential aged care facilities;
  • the Butt Out–Living without Smoking Program;
  • the Closing the Gap (CTG) program which provides on the ground support to clients and assistance to GPs and allied health services to reduce barriers to health care;
  • improving access to dietetic and diabetes education services for people residing in rural and remote settings;
  • the Immunisation program aims to increase immunisation rates;
  • the Partners In Recovery program provides coordinated support and flexible funding for people with severe and persistent mental illness with complex needs;
  • the Take Heart Cardiac Rehabilitation program which provides support for people who are recovering from a cardiac condition, or those at significant risk of cardiovascular disease;
  • encouraging further use of Telehealth for specialists, general practices, residential aged care facilities or Aboriginal medical services and increase the delivery of health services across the region.  

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