Australia needs bold reforms to provide best health care for ageing population

Australia needs to embrace bold and sometimes controversial reforms if we are to meet the challenge of providing appropriate health care to our ageing population in an environment of widespread health workforce shortages, according to a new study published in the Australian Health Review.

“Our future health workforce needs to be able to provide patient-centred care, to have a focus on public health and disease prevention, use information and the new communication technologies, to be able to work as part of a team and partner with a range of organisations and to be dedicated to quality improvement within the health system,” Professor Peter Brooks, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Queensland, said.

“This will require changes to the ways in which we train and organise our health workforce. The recent Productivity Commission report Australia’s health workforce provides some useful suggestions for these changes, although to date few of these have been implemented. They include:

• Extending the role of existing health professionals (nurses and allied health professionals);
• Creating new types of health workers (clinical/physician/surgical assistants);
• Improving efficiency of health workers by using information and other technologies more effectively;
• Placing more emphasis on prevention and health promotion in the community with development of models of self-management; and
• Changes in models of training.

“Australia has an opportunity to develop a world class, patient-centred, consumer-focused but provider-friendly health system. However, if we are going to seize this opportunity, we need to work together to ensure its success,” Professor Brooks said.