The Challenge

Ageing is a natural process.  As we get older, we move from a focus on health improvement and health intervention, to a focus on health maintenance and quality of life.  Health maintenance requires a more collaborative team based approach to the provision of care that typically exists at other stages of the life course as patient sometimes struggle with the complexity of self-navigating access to health services, and varying degrees of support and coordination are required to ensure residents get the right care at the right time.  The provision of primary health care to residents of aged care facilities (RACF) remains fragmented.  While RACF do an exceptional job coordinating services and activities around the needs of residents, an additional layer of health care coordination is often required to ensure clarity around the needs and goals of residents, and that the type of health care they receive is effectively organised across multiple health providers and professionals to achieve the life goals of the patient.