The University of New England and Hunter New England Health have today announced that the Tablelands Clinical School and General Practice Training Facility will be built on the Armidale Hospital Campus.

The University of New England, as part of the Joint Medical Program with the University of Newcastle, Hunter New England Health and Northern Sydney Central Coast Health, have been successful in receiving $5.5 million dollars in Commonwealth funding, awarded under the Rural Education Infrastructure Development (REID) program to construct and fit out the Tablelands Clinical School and develop a training practice building in collaboration with the New England Division of General Practice and GP Synergy.
The Vice Chancellor of the University of New England, Professor Jim Barber, welcomed the collaboration with the Hunter New England Health.

“This project is critical for both the University and the New England community as it is likely to increase the quality of clinical training and the capacity for clinical education across our area.

“It will create a professional environment with teaching clinics for healthcare students to obtain broader experience in diagnosis, treatment and prevention of illness,” Professor Barber said.

The new facility will serve medical students enrolled in the Joint Medical Program as well as other nursing and allied health students enrolled at UNE.

It will offer a greater range of clinical experiences by allowing students to be exposed to health problems seen by GPs and those referred to the hospital.

“Particularly important is the partnership between the University and the New England Division of General Practice in developing a training practice model of national and international significance,” Professor Barber said.

Chief Executive of Hunter New England Health, Dr Nigel Lyons, welcomed the initiative, supporting the development of the clinical teaching facility on the Armidale Hospital campus.

“The Joint Medical Program partnership has helped to establish Armidale as a clinical centre of excellence, offering practical opportunities and experiences for medical students and also provides benefits nursing and allied health students,” he said.

“We are pleased to welcome the Tablelands Clinical School and General Practice Training to the Armidale Hospital Campus. This establishes a firm training ground for students, by co-locating the learning environment in close proximity to patient care.

“We look forward to working with the JMP partners to build upon the success of this model – from the facilities and buildings to the curriculum and dedicated staffing needed to make the program an ongoing success,” Dr Lyons said.

For Media enquiries, please contact Michael Kauter, UNE Media Adviser on 0429360498 or 67733872 or Kristy Waddell at Hunter New England Health on 02 49855522.

The deficiencies in rural and remote health and medical services are well documented. Distance and rural location translate into space between users, practitioners and facilities, which in turn translates into time delays, costs and significant difficulties in bringing together all of the elements needed for effective primary healthcare.  The maxim of the patient’s need for the right health professional, with the right skills being in the right place and at the right time is most clear in the rural and remote settings.  Workforce gaps, the insufficiency of general and specialist infrastructures, the impact of transport and logistics upon delivery of and outcomes from services, the effect of remoteness and rural demographics on underlying health status are but some of the challenges which have a spatial dimension.

There are many strategies and innovations that are being used or developed, but often these are not effective or not readily adopted. The School of Health and the School of Rural Medicine, working with innovation researchers from the School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, are creating a new research programme, partly supported by the CRCSI Health research theme, to identify useful innovations systematically and to improve the way in which these are translated into practice.

Led by Professor Steven Campbell with colleagues from the Schools, the proposal has attracted the keen interest of front-line health organisations in Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia, the ACT and Western Australia.

The research will make four contributions.

1. To develop a practice-based comprehensive understanding of

• the unmet or inadequately met needs of front-line practitioners and patients for data, better intelligence, and integration of intelligence with practice;
• the forms in which such intelligence ought be delivered to fit with the needs of users; and
• the systems and support needed to make such ‘solutions’ effective.

2. To allow front-line rural practitioners to test and collaboratively refine potential solution configurations.

3. Through this process, and through related investigations, to improve the intelligence provided to front-line rural practitioners. This involves:

• Improving the comprehensiveness and quality of the data with emphasis on approaches that do not add to (and hopefully reduce) the administrative loads on primary health service deliverers;
• ensuring that the data that is consolidated and analysed within various systems is reliable for decision-making at the front line; and
• Ensuring that the pricing, use rights, timeliness and other considerations that can limit usefulness are also addressed.

4.    Identifying a framework for adoption, by addressing the matters that are important to primary health service deliverers such as

• Easy integration of innovations into practice infrastructures and processes;
• Coordination and collaboration across various service providers;
• Education and support;
• Economic and other incentives; and
• Reduction of institutional or other impediments that could make adoption difficult.

A declaration drafted at an international conference in Phitsanulok, Thailand, organised by the University of New England and Thailand’s Naresuan University, emphasises the importance of high-quality education and training for health service managers.

The “Phitsanulok Declaration” says that the conference – the 1^st International Conference on Health Service Delivery Management – was “the first opportunity in the South-East Asia and Asia Pacific regions to emphasise the importance of leadership and health management as essential precursors to health systems working to achieve high-quality health care for all”.

“The 450 delegates from 17 countries and 14 health and education organisations recognise the importance of a revitalised primary health care system – particularly in rural areas and at the local district level,” it continues. “This requires well trained professional health managers to be effective.”

The declaration is being circulated to all the conference delegates with a request that they translate it into their own languages and distribute it as widely as possible. “The delegates to this conference seek implementation of this declaration and pledge to continue to work together and expand the collaboration on which this declaration was founded,” it says.

Dr David Briggs, a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Health who was one of the conveners of the Phitsanulok conference, held in October, explained that the declaration had been drafted through a process of extensive discussion during and after the conference. It is available in its final form at: http://www.health.nu.ac.th/hdm2009/declaration.php

“The University of New England is committed to raising issues of relevance to rural communities at a global level,” said UNE’s Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Webb. “This landmark declaration signals the importance of training health managers to meet the challenges of providing effective leadership, and for planning integrated services for populations who require health care in rural communities, where health needs are often underserviced.”

Dr Briggs is one of several UNE staff members who are acting as advisers to Naresuan University’s Centre of Expertise on Leadership in Health Management. “The South-East Asia Regional Office of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was one of the major partners in the Phitsanulok conference,” he said, “and a significant outcome of the conference is that the Naresuan University Centre is now undergoing designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre of Expertise.”

Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions, is another of UNE’s advisers to the Naresuan University Centre, and was an invited speaker at the symposium that discussed the declaration.  “The declaration is a significant step towards meeting the growing expectations of the public with regard to receiving high-quality and effective health care,” Professor Minichiello said.

“A widely-reported issue in the media is the crisis in the health care system at a global level, and the challenges that the system faces,” he continued. ”Central to this debate is the capacity of health service managers to deal with the economic context of delivering health care, and to introduce reforms in the delivery of primary health care that are innovative and forward thinking. The declaration recognises the importance of training – and of ensuring appropriate levels of qualifications – for those who work in health service management.”

The CRC for Spatial Information extension will bring rapid and powerful collaboration on all critical research and education issues that involve a spatial aspect, and create a coordinated national network of satellite system reference stations to permit real‐time positioning to two centimetre accuracy; and establish the fully functioning Australian Spatial Marketplace. UNE will be involved in two major projects:
AGRICULTURE, NATURAL RESOURCES, AND CLIMATE CHANGE: BIOMASS PROJECT
Biomass Business is a major demonstrator project within the CRC for Spatial information which aims to empower Australia’s response to climate change by transforming the way public and private land managers balance agricultural productivity and sustainability. UNE will host this major project, using its significant strength in precision agriculture research to bring together agronomists, soil scientists, sensor specialists, physicists, ecosystem scientists, plant biologists, statisticians and computer scientists. The project aims to develop spatial‐based tools to drive on‐farm improvements in water, fertiliser and pasture utilisation, and associated soil health necessary to maintain the profitability of agricultural businesses, while maximising the synergies between production and environmental accountability. The project involves 4 of Australia’s top ten corporate farmers, 8 small‐medium enterprises and three state land managers including NSW DECC, WA Land Information and Victoria DPI.
HEALTH RESEARCH THROUGH THE CRC FOR SPATIAL INFORMATION
The successful rebid for the CRC Spatial Information opens up a further opportunity for cutting‐edge rural health research, based at UNE. A joint research programme with the University of Western Australia and various collaborators with UNE targets three fundamental health challenges associated with distance. These are the challenges of workforce, matching capabilities with needs, and the additional costs due to distance. The research is predicated on the expectation that linking spatial technology with other technology and management methods can assist to deliver tangible healthcare improvement in rural areas. Whilst the details of the research are yet to be developed in consultation with our partners in the CRC, it is expected to address the role of technology (with an emphasis on spatial data) integrated with management and clinical methods to improve the effectiveness of primary healthcare networks in rural areas; better enable service delivery models in remote areas, improve the utility of health technology and datasets, and improve spatial intelligence for health service design and delivery. Industry collaborators, BSR Solutions and 43pl, have signed on in support of UNE’s bid.