Tuesday 31 Oct | 13:00-14:30

 

Part 1: Homelessness is a health emergency – the case for integrating health and homelessness responses

Launch Housing is one of Melbourne’s largest secular providers of community housing and homelessness supports services. Assisting over 14,000 people each year with crisis accommodation, outreach, and transition and permanent housing solutions, Launch Housing has a mission to end homelessness, starting with rough sleeping as it is the most lethal form of homelessness. Building more affordable homes alone is not enough – we cannot end homelessness without also investing in health care.

This presentation looks at the link between homelessness and poor health, and the impact on the health system and the cost to governments when people experiencing homelessness cannot access primary health care. It presents the case for integrating health and homelessness responses, detailing the many positive outcomes that are achieved when a person experiencing homeless has access to specialist accommodation as well as accessible primary and community health services. This includes fewer hospital and emergency department admissions and reduced pressure and costs on the health system, as well as more sustainable, longer term health improvements for people experiencing homelessness, including mental and physical health and addiction issues.

Launch Housing has extensive experience in the delivery of homelessness and housing integrated support models and will share the results of recent program evaluations. Finally, the presentation will share key learnings about what it takes to enable good integrated approaches.

Laura Mahoney, Launch Housing, Australia

 

Part 2: Aboriginal Health and Patient Reported Measures (PRMs) – Stakeholder Engagement 

In Australia, few PRMs are developed or validated for Aboriginal people. PRMs capture patients’ perspectives of their own health/experiences to improve their health outcomes and quality of care. Benefits of PRMs include better decision making, ensuring patients and clinicians have all the information they need to make the best decisions together. Through implementation of the South Australian Statewide PRMs Program, there are opportunities to implement measures that are meaningful to Aboriginal people and their communities. This session outlines the initial stakeholder engagement undertaken in partnership with SA’s Department for Health and Wellbeing (DHW) – Aboriginal Health, incorporating recommendations made by stakeholders

Objectives

• Understand principles relating to Patient Reported Measures in the context of Aboriginal people in Australia

Caroline Bartle, Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health, Australia

 

Part 3: Deliberative processes: An authentic, meaningful, and safe model of engagement in healthcare 

Deliberative processes are often used in community engagement, but rarely in health. They focuses on enabling communities to be decision-makers, enhancing accountability, transparency and power sharing between providers and their communities. Their potential applications in health are self-evident. In a first for refugee healthcare, the Victorian Refugee Health Network used deliberative engagement to develop its Strategic Plan and guide future activities. We demonstrate how deliberative processes can be used in healthcare, and evaluate the role of the deliberative model for authentically, meaningfully, and safely engaging lived experience and sector expertise in health.

Objectives: 

• Describe what deliberative engagement is, how it differs from other engagement processes and its potential applications in healthcare


• Identify the fundamental process requirements to plan, commission and deliver a deliberative process


• Understand the experience of deliberative process from the perspective of participants and facilitators
  
  

Jessica (Ika) Trijsburg, Victorian Refugee Health Network, Monash University & The University of Melbourne, Australia

Abby Foster, Monash Health & Monash University; Australia

Corey Joseph, Monash Health, Australia