Our Healthcare Future
Our Healthcare Future will build a sustainable health system in Tasmania.
It will connect and rebalance care across acute, subacute, rehabilitation, mental health and primary health to care in the community.
This is stage two of the Tasmanian Government’s long-term reform to consult, design and build an integrated and sustainable health service.
We require ongoing collaboration with health consumers, healthcare professionals and stakeholders for these reforms to be successful. This year there will be opportunity to participate in clinical services and long-term planning.
For further information about the reform and consultation process, email: [email protected].
Advancing Tasmania's health
Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmanian’s Health provides a united vision that all Tasmanians are supported by a world-class, innovative and integrated health system.
It provides a policy direction for healthcare in Tasmania over the next 20 years.
Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmanian’s Health provides six principles to support how the vision will be achieved and guide decision making.
The Tasmanian health system will be:
- consumer centred
- collaborative
- innovative
- integrated
- equitable
- evidence based
Based on these principles, six strategic ambitions have been developed for the future health reforms:
- Better and More Accessible Community Care
- Strengthening Prevention
- Partnering with Consumers and Clinicians
- Building the Health Workforce
- Delivering the Health Infrastructure of the Future
- Strengthening Tasmania’s Pandemic Response
The exposure draft of Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmania’s Health was guided by an Expert Advisory Group.
The Group represented health consumers, clinicians, academics, primary health and social services to work with senior members of the Department. It concluded in December 2021 and supported:
- A Literature Review on strengthening healthcare to deliver the right care, in the right place, at the right time. This is being done by the University of Tasmania.
- A data analysis exercise to model projected demand for healthcare in Tasmania based on population need. The findings of this exercise are presented in the companion document Drivers of Tasmania’s Future Population Health Needs.
The Department thanks the Expert Advisory Group for their time and expertise guiding this work.
For information on how Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmania’s Health will inform future health planning, please refer to the summary of the Strategic Planning Environment.
Progress Summary Reports
Progress summary reports are published quarterly. They provide progress towards the Immediate Actions for the long-term plan for healthcare in Tasmania.
- Progress Summary Report - October 2022
- Progress Summary Report - July 2022
- Progress Summary Report - April 2022
- Progress Summary Report - January 2022
- Progress Summary Report - October 2021
- Progress Summary Report - July 2021
To find out more about the Immediate Actions see below.
Immediate actions
The Department is implementing immediate actions as part of the development and implementation of the long-term plan for healthcare in Tasmania.
Reform Initiative 1: Increase and better target our investment to the right care, place and time to maximise benefits to patients.
- Finalise implementation and evaluate the Southern Hospital in the Home Trial.
- Consult stakeholders on the Urgent Care Centre (UCC) Feasibility Study findings and finalise future delivery models.
- Develop and implement a service that provides GPs and other primary care health professionals with rapid access to staff specialists in the North and North West to provide care to people with chronic and complex healthcare needs, particularly during early acute exacerbations of chronic conditions.
- Building on Tasmania's response to COVID-19 which included significant focus on telehealth develop and implement a Telehealth Strategy for Tasmania that provides high quality patient care and integrates service delivery across acute, subacute, primary and community care.
Reform Initiative 2: Invest in modern ICT infrastructure to digitally transform our hospitals, improve patient information outcomes and better manage our workforce.
- Procure and implement a new Human Resources Information System (HRIS) to replace payroll, rostering, workplace health and safety, conduct and leave management.
- Develop a Health ICT Plan 2020 - 2030 encompassing electronic medical records, a new patient information system, electronic tools for managing care for patients in appropriate settings, and the new Human Resource Information System.
- Partner with Primary Health Tasmania to improve patient care by enhancing the interface between specialist and primary healthcare through:
- implementation of a single eReferral system between primary care and the Tasmanian Health Service
- scoping the requirements to implement a secure web-based application to enable GPs to view key information about patients in the care held by the Tasmanian Health Service
- a continued partnership-based focus on the development and implementation of jointly agreed clinician led Tasmanian health pathways.
Reform Initiative 3a: Develop a long-term health infrastructure strategy for Tasmania.
- Develop a 20-year Tasmanian health infrastructure strategy to ensure our health facilities enable us to deliver the right care, in the right place and at the right time to improve access to quality healthcare and help manage demand for acute hospital services.
- This will be informed by the masterplans for each of the major hospitals and include District Hospitals, community health centres, ambulance services and mental health infrastructure.
Reform Initiative 3b: Build a strong health professional workforce, aligned to a highly integrated health service, to meet the needs of Tasmanians.
- Release Health Workforce 2040 for consultation.
- Provide an opportunity for health professionals, health services, educational institutions and future health professionals to review and provide further input into the draft Health Workforce 2040 strategy. This will inform the final Focus Areas and Actions in the strategy.
- Partner with the University of Tasmania to better help support the recruitment of targeted specialists in regional areas through conjoint appointments, with a focus on the North West.
- Engage with the University of Tasmania to explore the alignment of future course offerings to future identified gaps in the workforce.
Reform Initiative 3c: Strengthen the clinical and consumer voice in health service planning.
- Establish a Statewide Clinical Senate to provide expert advice to the Secretary, Department of Health and Ministers on health service planning. The purpose, role and function of the Clinical Senate will be co-designed with key stakeholders.
- Establish a Future Health Leaders Forum to support and develop emerging health leaders.
Our Healthcare Future – Next Steps
Following the release of the exposure draft of Our Healthcare Future: Advancing Tasmania’s Health, the next steps in the Our Healthcare Future reform process are the development of:
- Regional clinical service plans. These plans will encompass primary, acute, sub-acute and community health services.
- An integrated long-term plan for healthcare in Tasmania which incorporates clinical service planning at a statewide level, to be released by December 2022.
The long-term plan will focus on achieving a more sustainable health system with better outcomes for consumers, their families and carers now and in the future. It will also build on and bring together the significant pieces of work already done.
KP Health is working with the Department to develop these plans.
A Health Planning Oversight Committee, reporting to the Secretary DoH, will oversee the development of the plans through to December 2022
The Health Planning Oversight Committee is supported by three regional reference groups and a consumer reference group. Other key stakeholders or reference groups will contribute to different phases of the planning, as needed.
Progress against key planning activities will be monitored to make sure they align with commitments and major service development, infrastructure and masterplanning projects.
To keep up to date, refer to the Progress Summary Reports
Stage 2 - Our Healthcare Future
Our Healthcare Future will build a sustainable health system in Tasmania.
It will connect and rebalance care across acute, subacute, rehabilitation, mental health and primary health to care in the community.
We know that healthcare demand is increasing in Tasmania due to:
- Social and demographic features including ageing population and high number of people living with co-morbid health conditions.
- People being cared for in hospital instead of through subacute, primary, community and home-based services.
- Care in the wrong place isn’t best for people and comes at a high cost.
Around $100 million is spent each year on care delivered in hospital that could have been delivered at a lower cost in the community.
Stage Two reforms will focus on the delivery of better care in the community, as part of a balanced and sustainable health system – right care, in the right place, at the right time.
Consultation paper and emerging themes
The release of the Our Healthcare Future Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper in late 2020 marked the start of the Stage Two reforms. The Consultation Paper highlighted key issues impacting healthcare in Tasmania now and in the future, and proposed three key improvement areas:
- Better Community Care
- Modernising Tasmania’s Health System
- Planning for the Future
The Department would like to thank all the organisations and individuals who prepared submissions in response to the Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper.
Analysis of submissions – Emerging Themes
Submissions were received from a broad cross section of the community, including consumers, clinicians, professional groups, service providers, advocacy groups, policy experts and academics.
The Department’s completed analysis outlines the Emerging Themes (Summary Version) from the submissions, finding:
- wide support for the overarching proposed themes
- strong support for patients to be treated in the community where possible, and for greater emphasis on preventative health
- an acknowledged need for digital transformation, long-term infrastructure and workforce planning to improve access to services and support new models of care.
The submissions noted the importance of health professionals and consumers being involved in health planning and supported the creation of a statewide Clinical Senate and other consumer and clinical engagement strategies to assist in providing this advice.
Further themes to emerge against each key improvement area are set out in detail in the Emerging Themes (Full Version) report. The report also maps the key themes from the submissions against improvement activities that the Tasmanian Government has planned or underway, to identify opportunities for further reform under Our Healthcare Future.
Submissions received in response to the Consultation
The submissions below were received in response to the Our Healthcare Future Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper and have been published in accordance with the Tasmanian Government’s Public Submissions Policy.
In line with the Tasmanian Government Guidelines ‘Publication of submissions received by Tasmanian Government Departments in response to consultation on major policy matters’, some submissions were appropriately withheld from publication or information was wholly or partly redacted. For example, private phone numbers or information that is confidential or identifies third parties.
Opinions expressed in the submissions are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the Tasmanian Government or the Department of Health.
If you believe your submission has been inappropriately withheld from publication or redacted, please feel free to contact the Department of Health to discuss this.
ID |
Date Received |
Organisation |
|
OHF.1.1 |
12/02/2021 |
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|
OHF.1.2 |
12/02/2021 |
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|
OHF.1.3 |
21/01/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.4 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.5 |
27/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.6 |
18/01/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.7 |
19/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.8 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.9 |
17/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.10 |
11/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.11 |
09/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.12 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.13 |
09/02/2021 |
Central Connect's Connecting Care Chronic Health Action Group |
|
OHF.1.14 |
01/03/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.15 |
10/02/2021 |
Clinical Governance Unit; and Quality Patient and Safety Service Unit, DoH |
|
OHF.1.16 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.17 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.18 |
04/02/2020 |
|
|
OHF.1.19 |
15/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.20 |
02/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.21 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.22 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.23 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.24 |
17/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.25 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.26 |
10/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.27 |
15/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.28 |
19/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.29 |
18/12/2020 |
|
|
OHF.1.30 |
12/02/2021 |
Health Promotion Consultants/Coordinators, THS North West, South and North |
|
OHF.1.31 |
23/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.32 |
10/12/2020 |
|
|
OHF.1.33 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.34 |
04/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.35 |
10/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.36 |
19/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.37 |
12/02/2021 |
Occupational Therapy Discipline Leads, THS North, THS South, THS North West |
|
OHF.1.38 |
25/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.39 |
19/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.40 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.41 |
10/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.42 |
22/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.43 |
11/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.44 |
19/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.45 |
17/12/2020 |
|
|
OHF.1.46 |
15/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.47 |
11/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.48 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.49 |
12/01/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.50 |
26/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.51 |
18/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.52 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.53 |
16/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.54 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.55 |
13/01/2021 |
|
|
OHF.1.56 |
12/02/2021 |
ID |
Date Received |
Individual(s) |
|
OHF.2.1 |
19/02/2021 |
|
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OHF.2.2 |
19/02/2021 |
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OHF.2.3 |
01/02/2021 |
|
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OHF.2.4 |
09/12/2020 |
|
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OHF.2.5 |
28/01/2021 |
|
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OHF.2.6 |
24/12/2020 |
|
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OHF.2.7 |
19/01/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.8 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.9 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.10 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.11 |
11/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.12 |
18/01/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.13 |
25/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.14 |
02/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.15 |
12/02/2021 |
|
|
OHF.2.16 |
09/12/2020 |
Stage 1 - One State, One Health System, Better Outcomes
In 2015 stage 1 of the health reforms begun. One State, One Health System, Better Outcomes was the first step of designing and implementing a single, statewide service. The focus was on the four major hospitals and defining their roles within the health system:
- Over $1 billion dollars has been committed to health system infrastructure, and over $550 million to additional staffing and operational costs across our health system.
- The reforms were developed through wide community consultation process.
- In 2019, the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) Access Solutions Action Plan and the Patient’s First Hospital Actions looked at issues impacting access and patient flow within the major hospitals.
- Stage One reforms continue to complement Our Healthcare Future (stage 2 reforms).
One State, One Health System, Better Outcomes has also been complemented by the Patient’s First and RHH Access Solutions initiatives which have focused on increasing access to hospital services.
The following documents and consultation papers are available:
One State, One Health System, Better Outcomes
- Exposure Draft White Paper (2015)
- White Paper (2015)
- Tasmanian Clinical Services Profile Implementation Paper (2015)
- Tasmanian Role Delineation Framework (2015)
- Green Paper: Delivering Safe and Sustainable Clinical Services (2014)
- Green Paper Supplement 1 - Sustainability (2014)
- Green Paper Supplement 2 - Workforce (2014)
- Green Paper Supplement 3 - Community Care (2014)
- Green Paper Supplement 4 - Emergency Care (2014)
- Green Paper Supplement 5 - Elective Surgery (2014)
- Green Paper Issues Paper: Rebuilding Tasmania’s Health System (2014)
RHH Access Solutions
Where to get more information
For further information, or to stay informed about the reform process:
- Download the Our Healthcare Future: Immediate Actions and Consultation Paper 2020
- Download the Our Healthcare Future: Thematic Analysis (Summary Version)
- Download the Our Healthcare Future: Thematic Analysis (Full Report)
- Download the Establishing a State-wide Clinical Senate for Tasmania Issues Paper 2021
- email: [email protected]
