National Health Service Planners Forum 2011

nhsp 2011 evaluation

National Health Service Planners Forum 2011

7 and 8 April, StamfordPlaza, 111 Little Collins St, Melbourne

Evaluation and Forum Themes

Introduction

The forum was initiated by the national health service planners senior management group. It followed an inaugural forum in BrisbaneQueensland 27 November 2009.

A key group of representatives from each jurisdiction was established to support the ongoing organisation of the nhsp 2011 forum. Members were:

The forum was hosted by Victoria under the auspice of Sue Brennan, Manager Strategic Planning and Asset Management, and organised in-house, with no registration fees but with restrictions on the number who could attend (80) resulting from the budget and the capacity of the venue. Jackie Beckmann was the Project Manager, 03 9096 2080 or email . Mary Lenihan worked one day a week for 6 monthsandIan Pollard,EurekaSolutions, was engaged to facilitate the forum. An internal management group met twice, at the commencement of the project and regular written updates were provided to senior management.

Attendance

Eighty-five(85) people were registered online at the start of the conference. Five (5) othershad registered but withdrawn. 11 people registered for only one day - 78 people registered for day 1 and 77 for day 2. Final numbers from each jurisdiction were: ACT 6, NSW 8, NT 3, Qld 11, SA 5, Vic 48 and WA 4.

Tasmanian representatives did not register as they were unable to attend due to work pressure associated with national initiatives. About 8 of the name tags of people registered from DH Victoria were not picked up – primarilypeople sharing a registration or only attending one session. Four speakers did not register or attend including the key note speakers from day 1 and day 2 and speakers from non-government organisations.

Twenty-six (26) people presented, including 7 jurisdiction presentations. Two presentations were presented jointly and one of these was an interstate collaboration. About half the presenters were from the home state of Victoria.

Fifty-four (54) people registered prior to the forum for cocktails, 50 for the dinner and 39 for the tour of the new RCH. Eventual attendance was lower at approx 40, 35 and 21 respectively.

Evaluation Findings

Thirty-nine (39) evaluation forms were returned from all jurisdictions apart from Tasmania. This equates to 46% of the total attendance (85) and 50% of the daily attendance (77).

Twenty-four (24) or 61% of the evaluations were from people who attended all of the sessions at the forum. Nearly a third of the forms were submitted by people who had attended the 2009 forum (28%).

Reasons for attending:

Participants were asked to indicate the importance (4 levels) of 5 factors in their decision to attend. The highest possible score was 156 (4x39). Relevance to work was ranked the most important factor in attending (148 or 95% of the highest possible score) followed by networking (123/79%), presenters (109/70%), location (94/60%) and the timing of the event (87/56%).

Standard of the forum organisation:

Various aspects of the organisation of the forum were also rated in importance. The online registration ranked the highest (135/86%), followed by the Program (128/82%), the information (127/81%) the catering (122/78%) and the venue (119/76%). Seven people (18%) did not rate the website, but those who did gave it a total of 102 points out of an possible 128 ie 80%.

Comments on the forum organisation:

Program

• The program on day 1 was quite full-on with back to back presentations. Could have been broken up with other activities.
• Professional, very informative and well managed conference. Thank you.
• Some content in relation to Commonwealth initiatives would have been useful eg. Medicare locals, primary health care planning models. Will presentations be available on http//www.capital.health.vic.gov.au/plannersforum?
• Joint presentations would be one way of illustrating differences between approaches to gain insight and consistency for future planning frameworks for the national context.

Venue

• It was extremely cold in the room.
• The room is very long and some power points are not visible from back of room. A power point projector half way down the room would have been helpful. Acoustics are very good.
• Long room not the best for presentations.
• Room too big to see screen.
• Venue could have been better with visual presentations.

Registration

• Registration was initially problematic because we were not allowed to go but this sorted out a few days ago so ok.

The Program

Participants were asked to indicate the value (4 levels) they personally obtained from each presentation. Not all people ranked each session – the number of responses and the total score of points is given as well as the points as a percentage of the total possible highest score based on the number of people who rated that particular presentation.

David Panter’s presentation on the SA Health Plan (the day 1 key note speech) was valued very highly.

People also valued the jurisdiction presentations including the opportunity to ask questions.

Other presentations people, on average, thought were very valuable to them included:

• Telehealth & Shared Care Planning in Remote Areas- Peter Beirne NT
• Service Planning for new Workforce Roles – Shelly Horne SA
• Population Health Planning – Professor Helen Keleher VIC
• Planning for Technological Change – Paul Fennessy VIC and Kaye Hewson Q
• A New Model of Health care - the Walk-in Centre - Susan Hayward ACT
• Mental Health Planning Queensland – Dr Aaron Groves

Potential topics for further forums

A number of comments suggested there could be more discussion around proposed national changes to the health care system and on the tools/processes being used for planning and implementation. The comments were:

• Commonwealth speakers on planning under Medicare Locals and Health Networks.
• More on implementation of service plans and Model of Cares especially chronic disease, emergency care coordination across metro / country - hub and spoke, aged care planning, community rehab, early years (across providers), Aboriginal health, CALD programs and Refugee health, Application and use of tele-health for service delivery – inputs and outputs and home monitoring, ED -4hr rule, Sub – acute.
• Workforce planning and alternative workforce models.
• Opportunities / Constraints as they arise from political decisions etc.
• Look for innovative solutions to common problems
• Forecasting – inpatient and community
• Population based health planning
• Mapping Technologies against burden of disease – 12 months – outcomes.
• Planning for community health services
• More national agenda items
• Resources / Tool Kits / Models / Guidelines / websites available at each jurisdiction that can/are able to be shared across borders.
• More discussion around innovation on ABF
• Understanding economic appraisals – value and efficiency for capital planning
• Speaking financial language
• Development / Review good business cases
• Changing governments and health agenda impacts on health planning structures and priorities
• Planning for Health Networks and Medicare Locals – what will the paradigm be?
• Perhaps a focus on new challenges emerging in different areas.
• How to plan with other areas eg. Commonwealth – would be good to get their view too.
• Discussion group on specific services.
• Focus presenters on answering questions that are common to us all. It becomes a bit of a “show & tell” and I think we lost an opportunity to discuss planning challenges and how other jurisdictions may have addressed these.
• Integration and planning
• “How to” and “What to” – like the SA Workforce session

Of the 33 people who indicated whether not the social functions were useful for networking, 29 (88%) thought they were and 3 didn’t. Of the 27 who responded to the question of whether the hospital tour was a worthwhile option, 25 (93%) thought it was.

What can be done better?

The suggestions for what could be improved were variable and reflected the suitability of the venue, the program, the content and the ‘dry’ delivery of some presentations. They were:

• Warmer room
• Less time for morning / afternoon tea / lunch and more time for questions (as external presenters often leave and no opportunity to talk over breaks).
• Good breadth of presenters / issues covered
• Interesting to hear about differences between jurisdictions and way of tackling them. Overall, great. Thanks Vic.
• More examples of innovative models of care / service delivery to meet demand within restricted resources.
• Well done. I really enjoyed it.
• Clearer understanding to all participants on the intent of state updates. Maybe common headings to address presentations may be useful.
• Just visibility of power points.
• Workforce was limited – interesting but issues related to efficiencies to be gained are wider spread – eg technicians – radiology and nuclear medicine.
• Perhaps topic discussion breakout groups? Perhaps an afternoon break balances by evening sessions (for the shoppers!)
• Workforce modelling systems or tools.
• Stick to timing on the program. Better chairing to keep speakers to their designated time for presentations.
• Presenters should be asked not to use acronyms when speaking (ok for presentations) so that we start speaking the same language. Presenters need to be managed closely to stick to time frames.
• When are we going to start planning across the spectrum – Early intervention, Primary Care, Acute / Sub-Acute (HITH), Post-Discharge Care.
• A bit more entertaining presenters next time.
• Perhaps a program that isn’t quite so full on day 1.
• More time allocated to focus on key issues in “service planning” – group discussions, workshop –type activities.
• Have a wide margin on the agenda sheet to enable brief notes to be made against individual speakers.
• Second screen so that can see from the back of venue.
• Presenters in the jurisdiction sessions need to have clear direction on time and subject matter. Most exceeded time which is unfair to the following presenters. Presenters did not explain their language – all jurisdictions refer to things differently.
• Key note speakers were varied in their topics and how they approached their presentations – not sure there was a consistent theme.
• While overall the standard of presentations and their relevance was fairly good. The two days were quite dry and it was challenging to maintain concentration. Need to build in some variety and ‘fun’ into the program.
• I would prefer if service planners were able to go to a service planning forum in the first instance. Otherwise it was ok. Thanks.
• Very good overall, no recommendation

Themes and reflections

The overwhelming informally expressed view of the participants was a wide spread recognition of the importance of an opportunity to hear what was happening in other jurisdictions and to meet others and discuss common issues.

Other reflections:

A long term commitment and consistent vision can leadto better health care systems and health outcomes - this is because it takes time not only to plan, but also to obtain the relevant approvals and,more importantly, to implement the plans and develop collaborative partnerships with key stakeholders.

New concepts and ways of doing things provide inspiration but the circumstances to which they are applied and the existing environmentand infrastructure pose unique challenges and shape outcomes.Changing the way health care professionals think and changing the organisational culture is often required.

It is easier to build and develop new facilities and programs than to change or upgrade old ones – the older jurisdictions face a different types ofhealth service challenges.

Jurisdictions have different challenges originating from their geography, seasonal weather variations and extremes, population characteristics such as size, culture and distribution,and all may face at some time the need to respond to unpredictable natural disasters. These factors affect how health care is planned and delivered and shape jurisdiction’s response to the needs of local populations.

Systemic change is rarely achieved without the backing of political partners who have both the courage and conviction to weather the self-focused lobbying of professional groups.

Health system planning is more quickly progressed and realised when it is well integrated with government funding mechanisms and whole of government planning. Realistic, evidence based, costed plans are needed so they have a chance of being implemented.

A understanding of the factors that have the potential to impact on the demand and delivery of health care (eg technology, workforce, ICT, pharmaceuticals, self-management, cross-sectorial approaches, care settings)has the potential toresult in more cost effective solutions to current problems than continuing to do more of the same in a hospital bed or in a GP clinic.

We use a lot of jargon and acronyms but do not have a shared understanding of terms across the jurisdictions– developing a common terminology, a definition/s of concepts, and even planning frameworks and national strategies, could be beneficial. For example, understanding what we mean by health system planning, population health planning, service planning, health planning or ‘model of care’.

There is a wide range of information available on websites etc but not a way to make people aware of what there is and what is becoming available eg a clearing house, email summaries eg ‘social alert’ etc.

There is the potential improve the chance of meeting future demand with the resources available by changing the way health care is delivered and the balance between the health care sectors – this may become critical in the context of the predicted fiscal gap and health’s contribution to it and provide the impetus for major reform.

If we accept the population health planning evidence that the causes of most ill health and poor wellbeing are outside the health sector, then it stands to reason that health service planning models aimed at to reducing the demand for health careand improving health outcomes need to consider more than analyse and forecast health service utilisation and population growth. Is there potential for integrated planning that empowers communities and individuals and takes a whole of person approach in an appropriate setting?

Next Forum

The national health service planners senior management group met during the conference and proposed that the next forum be held in NSW in 2013.

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