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Are we there yet? A journey of health reform in Australia
Author(s) -
Bennett Christine C
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/mja13.10839
Subject(s) - health care , commission , context (archaeology) , government (linguistics) , business , health policy , public relations , social determinants of health , political science , public administration , economic growth , economics , finance , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , biology
Summary Five years on from the establishment of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, it is timely to review the context for reform and some of the actions taken to date, and to highlight remaining areas of concern and priority. The Commission's final report was released in July 2009 and presented 123 recommendations organised under four reform themes: ➢ Taking responsibility: individual and collective action to build good health and wellbeing — by people, families, communities, health professionals, employers, health funders and governments ➢ Connecting care: comprehensive care for people over their lifetime ➢ Facing inequities: recognise and tackle the causes and impacts of health inequities ➢ Driving quality performance: leadership and systems to achieve best use of people, resources and evolving knowledge. Overall, the Australian Government's response to the Commission's report has been very positive, but challenges remain in some key areas: ➢ Financial sustainability and the vertical fiscal imbalance between the federal and state governments ➢ Getting the best value from the health dollar by reducing inefficiency and waste and using value‐based purchasing across the public and private health sectors ➢ National leadership across the system as a whole ➢ Getting the right care in the right place at the right time ➢ Health is about more than health care — increasing focus on prevention and recognising and tackling the broader social determinants of health.