Developing a healthy regional health workforce Professor Julian Wright Head, Department of Rural Health Director of Medical Student Education, Rural Clinical School Professor of Medicine
Department of Rural Health Background Federally funded workforce program Two main programs Rural Clinical School (1 of 18) University Department of Rural Health (1 of 11) Also run Centre of Excellence for Rural Sexual Health Created approximately 15 years ago RCS 120 students in all clinical years, over 500 graduands Main campuses Ballarat, Bendigo, Shepparton, Wangaratta Multiple student placements across NE Victoria Rurally of background and rural placements lead to working rurally
Department of Rural Health Background UDRH set up to address a number of regional and rural issues All Federal government set priorities Indigenous Health Allied Health student placements and support Mental Health Rural Research
Aboriginal Health 6 students in the Masters of Public Health Aboriginal Health Conference Development of a Grad. Certificate in Aboriginal Health Developing pathway for Aboriginal students into nursing Research on Income Management Active NAIDOC week Chair of ARHEN s Aboriginal Staff Network
Research Page Title / heading goes here Culturally Inclusive Rural Health Care
Research : Rural Chronic Illness Page Title / heading goes here Implementation of a range of projects of specific focus, bi-focal structure and broad focus. AIM: to bring multidisciplinary teams together with health services to improve patient outcomes in rural areas. Specific focus Clinical audits (diabetes, diabetes complications, chronic kidney disease) Bi-Focal Perspectives of consumers and clinicians (obesity, diabetes, mental health) Broad Focus Data linkage (service use, health behavior, disease patterns) 2016 NHMRC Partnership grant to repeat the Crossroads study. $1 million requested, $530k pledged by local health services.
Research: Workforce Page Title / heading goes here In addition to medical education... International study of factors that encourage and dissuade GPs working in rural communities Evaluation of student placements Evaluation of service learning trial
Government priorities in developing regional health workforce training Increase in Allied Health student placements and support Significant additional funding to increase student placements and support in physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, audiology, psychology, podiatry, dietetics, social work, exercise physiology. In addition to existing funding for nursing and dental places
Number of allied health professionals per 100,000 population 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 Major cities Inner regional Outer regional Remote/Very Remote 0 Source: NRHA, 2014c, 2014d
Government priorities in developing regional health workforce training Junior doctor training pipeline $93.8 million announced in December 2015 30 new regional training hubs to work with local health services to stream students through a rural pipeline Rural Junior Doctor Training Innovation Fund to allow rural based interns to spend some of their intern year in rural general practice Targeted expansion of Specialist Training Program to create 100 new training places in rural areas
Developing the rural health workforce Allied Health Secured additional $2.3 million per annum from Federal government Creation of new service learning models speech pathology Creation of new training placements psychology Working with other universities Federation University, La Trobe university to provide additional support for existing placements Scholarships, subsidised accommodation Our target is to support 7000 student placement weeks before the end of 2018 (Currently around 2000)
Importance of developing a rural health workforce Access dialysis provision (urgent and must be fixed) Access plastic surgery (unlikely to be fixed due to specialisation) Access lack of outpatient arrangements Equity postcode prescribing
Extended Rural Cohort Program Cobram Corowa Echuca Yarrawonga Shepparton Wangaratta Benalla Mt Beauty Mansfield MELBOURNE
Unique intern training model meeting the needs of small rural health services Rotate in concept Core rotations across two regional rural hospitals 20 weeks in general practice Skills Workshops, video conference pediatric & geriatric education, grand rounds, clinical reviews and medical workforce meetings Structured interaction with visiting medical specialists in small rural hospitals UoM Rural Clinical School DCT & education role
How can career practitioners help us? Regional and rural health is an expanding area Federal government is putting new money into this Rural health careers are rewarding Careers of real transformational value to the community they work in Individual practitioners working rurally will often be working in small teams in relatively small health services hence their individual impact on planning service delivery and delivery of health care can be considerable Rural health practitioners are not small cogs in big wheels
How can career practitioners help us? Rural health students are well supported Accommodation for medical students in Victoria outside Melbourne is $100 per week Student survey results consistently demonstrate that compared to other UoM Clinical Schools, RCS students report greater access to patients and they feel better prepared to assess patients