Services

Services

• Undertook more than 113,000 visits, slightly ahead of budgeted activity.
• Continued development of Home Oncology Maintenance service in Perth and Melbourne, and expanding to regional sites.
• Maternity visits up by more than 30%.
• Successful tender for the delivery of Home Nursing services on behalf of a large Metropolitan Healthcare network in Victoria.
• Received a $25,000 grant in Ballarat to assist the transition of the Home and Community Care program to the Commonwealth Home Support Program.
• Commenced replacement of mobile phones with tablet devices, allowing clearer visualisation of patient information and treatment orders.
• Replaced a total of 18 vehicles.
• Centralised intake and funding functions in Victoria.
• Australian Council on Healthcare Standards EQuIP6 Organisation-Wide Survey in 2017 resulted in a full four-year accreditation with no recommendations.

People

• Improvement in workforce efficiency through better alignment of roles and functions, streamlining of processes and improvement in skill mix.
• Inclusion of all Victorian Nurses in the new Victorian Nurses EBA 2016-2020, providing improved terms and conditions of employment and aligning Health Choices nurses with their hospital peers.
• Appointment of a new Clinical Team Leader position in Melbourne Service Delivery Centre, associated with an increase in referrals and activity in the South East region.
• Increased number of students placed in Western Australia by 40%.

Community

• Expanded partnership with VincentCare Victoria offering young adult counselling services to include referrals from the Kangan Youth Foyer in Broadmeadows. Sixty new clients participated during 2016/17.
• Expanded art therapy and group fitness programs for VincentCare (Ozanam House) to include referrals from the Ozanam Community Centre.
• Provided additional library resources and art therapy supplies to the Esther Foundation in Western Australia as part of continued partnership to help young people recover from trauma, addiction and homelessness.

Year Ahead

• Continue to expand Oncology Maintenance Services across all hospital services.
• Further investigate the development of Home Chemotherapy and Infusion services for those patients who can safely receive their treatment in their own homes, eliminating the need for hospitalisation.
• Complete the mobile phone replacement program, which will see all clinical caregivers provided with a tablet device.
• Continue the planned replacement of ageing fleet of vehicles, to improve reliability and decrease maintenance costs.
• Continue to identify new opportunities for reducing unnecessary hospitalisation, or reducing average length of stay, through the ongoing identification of treatments or care suitable for home delivery.
• Continue the transition to electronic medical records.
• Undertake a major upgrade of the Health Choices patient information system, ComCare.
• Recruit members for a Community Consultative Committee.
• Commence a structured donations program.