Delivering Universal After-Hours Care
SWSPHN faces substantial issues that most PHNs encounter, such as delivering appropriate after-hours treatment, relieving strain on GPs, and reducing the number of non-urgent cases that arrive at hospital EDs, costing the health system millions of dollars each year.
The organisation has used a variety of methods to assist after-hours care across the region, including GP home visits and drop-in clinics, as well as a basic after-hours GP phone service sponsored across four of the seven LGAs.
My Emergency Doctor is assisting communities in Sydney's south west in connecting to excellent emergency telemedicine care after hours and reducing costly avoidable presentations to the region's crowded emergency hospitals.
"It's innovative for us to have a service that can be - and is being - equitably accessed by our entire population. We see it as an efficient use of our funding; it's fulfilling a gap and capturing people more likely to present unnecessarily to ED."
Nick McGhie, Digital Health and Data Manager, SWSPHN