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We will align our services locally to provide safe, patient-centred care, ensuring the needs of our patients are at the core of everything we do.

Our patients, their loved ones, and their carers are at the centre of everything we do. We will continue to advance our patient focus by measuring and enhancing the patient experience, engaging consistently with consumers, providing care as close to home as possible and continuing to uphold the highest standards of safety and quality.

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Improve the patient experience through safer, more integrated and tailored services
Patients often need treatment and support from a range of services across multiple care providers. We will work with our partners and country communities to plan and deliver more integrated, coordinated and patient-led services. Services that are focussed on meeting the needs of patients and country communities, rather than centred around the needs of service providers, ourselves included. We will develop the leadership capacity of staff to facilitate integration and place-based care. Consumers will be supported to navigate the healthcare system by reducing complexity and providing guidance where needed. Complex conditions require a network of services delivered by teams. We will focus on the models of care for complex and chronic conditions and the services required to improve the experience and outcomes for frequent hospital attendees. Continuously improving the safety and reliability of our services remains a key goal.

Engage with consumers to ensure that their needs are at the centre of everything we do
We will actively involve patients, their families and carers in the planning and delivery of their care, ensuring our services are respectful of, and responsive to, their needs and values. We will develop improved ways for consumers and carers to have input into improvements in safety, the patient experience and journey. Capturing and responding to consumer feedback and publishing information on patient reported outcomes and experience will be used to drive continuous improvement. Provide care as close to home as possible WACHS delivers services across a vast geographic distance and to some of the most remote communities in the world. We cannot deliver every service in every community so there will always be times when country people will have to travel to receive the right care, especially as their needs increase or become more specialised. We will leverage the opportunities presented by technology and a more flexible workforce to introduce, where possible, new models that provide more care closer to home. End of life and palliative care choices are important for individuals and families. We will work with staff and across agencies to enable country communities to access contemporary end of life information and palliative care.

Provide care as close to home as possible
WACHS delivers services across a vast geographic distance and to some of the most remote communities in the world. We cannot deliver every service in every community so there will always be times when country people will have to travel to receive the right care, especially as their needs increase or become more specialised. We will leverage the opportunities presented by technology and a more flexible workforce to introduce, where possible, new models that provide more care closer to home. End of life and palliative care choices are important for individuals and families. We will work with staff and across agencies to enable country communities to access contemporary end of life information and palliative care.

Measures of success

• ↑ Patient experience and satisfaction
• ↑ Improved patient outcomes
• ↑ Improved clinical outcome measures
• ↓ Incidence of preventable harm
• ↑ Consumer engagement mechanisms and opportunities are offered
• ↑ Number of facilities using emergency, specialised and outpatient telehealth services
• ↑ Number of patients receiving ‘in home’ telehealth services
• ↑ Consumer access to an expanded range of services available via telehealth
• ↓ Travel for country patients to access specialist services
• ↓ Discharge against medical advice (DAMA) and do not wait (DNW) rates
• ↑ Access to palliative care services
• ↑ Self-sufficiency in country inpatient and outpatient services