Aged Care
Background
Residents in Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs) are a particularly vulnerable group, and many GPs delivering medical services to this group feel overworked and poorly supported.
Our role was to establish collaborative linkages with the Residential Aged Care sector to pursue a range of interests relating to GP / Aged Care integration, health services delivery to clients, and workforce and support issues for GPs.
IT in Aged Care IT in Aged Care remains a challenging area and we will continue to look for tools to support and streamline GPs work in aged care facilities. The particular forms for 2007 will be to investigate remote access. Stakeholder Engagement
The Association is fortunate to have established strong relationships with not only our aged care facilities, but with key aged care sector stakeholders. The Aged Care Coordinator meets with Southern Region Division Aged Care Coordinators to share resources and learnings, is a member of the City of Casey Regional Aged Care Advisory Group, and facilitates a Dandenong Hospital/ Aged Care / Division working group comprising of the Aged Care Nurse Consultant at the Hospital and four DONs from facilities in the area. This group in particular explores a range of issues relating to hospital transfers and discharge reviews of aged care residents and is responsible for instigating the Transit Envelope pilot project. In addition, the Aged Care Program Coordinator is in close contact with South East Palliative Care and works together on a range of initiatives to inform GPs of key issues in palliative care, and address education needs. South East Palliative Care, and Casey Hospital Palliative Care are members of the Palliative Care Working Group.
Palliative Care
Significant collaboration with Palliative Care Service providers has been undertaken and we are working to better support GPs and Residential Aged Care Facilities in this important area. Extensive Palliative Care resources and fact sheets can be found under Resources / Aged Care / Palliative Care.