Australian Better Health Initiative

What is the Australian Better Health Initiative

The Australian Better Health Initiative is part of the Council of Australian Government's 4 year plan - '$1.1 Billion injected to health' announced in 2006. ABHI is directly funded by the Department of Health and Ageing until 2010. There are five focus areas:

1. Promoting Healthy Lifestyles
2. Signposting early detection of risk factors and chronic disease
3. Supporting lifestyle and risk modification
4. Encouraging active patient self management of chronic conditions
5. Improving the communication and coordination between services

The main focus for ABHI in the Mid North Coast DGP is Primary Care Integration - Focus area 5 - in the areas of Diabetes, CHD & Mental Health. However this work will also have an impact in the other focus areas, for example Focus Areas 2, 3 & 4. The main aim is to improve the patient journey and patient outcomes through better collaboration with existing and newly developed primary care networks. Developing improved communication between providers will underpin this work.

What Do We Hope To Achieve?

The ABHI Primary Care Integration Program aims to promote solutions to primary care integration between general practice and other local health care providers that will assist in the delivery of seamless patient care. The Regional Coordinators will liaise and negotiate with Primary Care Providers, GPs, Allied Health, Specialists, Area Health Service representatives and other stakeholders to map existing services, determine the level of existing integration of service, opportunities for collaboration and develop collaborative models of care.An ABHI Working Groups are being set up with representatives from NCAHS, GPs, Specialists, Allied Health & a patient representative.

These groups will track progress and give guidance to the program. The first meeting took place in July 2008. Project Key Performance Indicators include increased uptake of Care Plans and developing shared care protocols

Program Linkages

The local Chronic Disease Collaborative is part of the ABHI Program and this will also link in with the local work of the APCC. The APCC/Chronic Disease focus areas of Diabetes, CHD and Mental Health mean that the more practices that get involved with collaborative type work, the greater the potential success of ABHI. This will be due to the improvements that practices make with the care of their Diabetic, CHD & Mental Health patients. For example collaborative practices will be setting up or improving a robust patient register for Diabetes and CHD along with a call/recall system, making best use of care plans and the chronic care model developed for the MNCDGP area. They will also be focussed on improving clinical indicators in Diabetes and CHD which should result in better patient outcomes. ABHI will link in with the work of the Practice Support and Mental Health programs.

Other ABHI areas the Division will be working on

ABHI Focus Area 2 - supporting use of the new MBS item number 713 - Diabetes Risk Assessment and support the use of the existing item numbers for health checks.

ABHI Focus Area 3 - supporting lifestyle risk modification, e.g. Lifestyle Modification Program as part of COAG Diabetes Prevention Program and supporting MBS item number 713.

Attached below are the 2 referral forms for the Why Weight Lifestyle Modification Program.