Health & Human Service Planning

Health & Human Service Planning

The Victorian population is rapidly growing and the burden of chronic disease is increasing. Health services must therefore deliver care in new ways and in challenging environments. This provides health services with opportunities for improvement and innovation in delivering the services that meet people’s needs.

Our experience in developing service plans, models of care and strategic plans for metropolitan, regional and rural public health services gives us unique insights into these opportunities.

We understand the interlocking roles of hospitals and community-based services in the delivery of health care and the management of patients’ care pathways. We understand the complex interactions between hospital and primary health care providers, and recognise the patient benefits that flow from better relationships and smoother pathways.

Download our Health & Human Service Planning Capability Statement

Rural & Regional Health Service Planning; Metropolitan Health Services Planning

Rural and regional communities rely on their health services to underwrite their health and wellbeing through direct services and by providing pathways to other services as needed. We have completed service plans for small rural health services, Multi-Purpose Services, regional referral hospitals and regional primary care providers. We spend time to understand the unique relationships between each health service and its community and partners, as well as analysing data about health needs and health service delivery. Metropolitan public health services face different challenges and opportunities, including management of overlapping boundaries, rapid population growth and balancing the demands of the emergency department with the elective waiting lists.

Business Cases & Commercial Analysis

Effective health service delivery relies on a complex interaction between privately-funded and publicly-funded services; primary care and acute care services; human and technological resources; short-term and long-term management of assets and workforce: making the case for investment in community health and well-being. Each business case must rely on evidence and a clear understanding of the rationale for investment, as well as a detailed description of the proposal.

Consultation

All of our projects depend for their success on effective consultation. We aim to use people’s time as efficiently as possible, whether in group discussions or one-on-one interviews. The consultation process should provide participants with opportunities to reflect and question, as well as opportunities to influence the project directions.

Specialist health service planning

We have completed plans for specialist health service areas including mental health services, cardiac services, palliative care, maternity services, paediatric services, sub-acute services and community health. Each service stream includes consumer and carer interests, numbers of service partners, and Federal and State policy and funding parameters.

Integration Planning

Increasingly, governments seek integrated services and joined-up care. We have worked with groups of health and human services which seek to pool resources and expertise to develop innovative and locally-responsive service models. These negotiations are complex, as each agency needs to cede some sovereignty in order to achieve the integration goals. We start by making sure that all participants agree about the outcomes to be achieved.

Models of care

Models of care describe how health service will deploy their resources to meet patient needs. We start from understanding the principles on which a model would be based, then consider how processes, decisions and protocols can be directed to achieve these principles. We conduct a managed discussion to answer the core question, “how does a health service make sure that the right care gets to the patient, at the right time and in the right place?” We have prepared models of care for acute and sub-acute health services, mental health services, residential aged care services and community health services.