Wingecarribee health service model for transitional care

Abstract

The Wingecarribee Health Service (WHS) has developed a program of ambulatory care different from the commonly accepted models. The program provides a "whole service" approach to care, with integration of hospital, allied health and community services in partnership with other key stakeholders such as general practitioners (GPs) and non-government organisations (NGOs). It departs from the medical model and embraces the health service's commitment to a wellness approach to care. The program is focused on providing the most appropriate care, in the most appropriate location by the most appropriate provider.

A decade of change in a community health service: a shift to acute and short-term care

“…The role of the community health services has thus been changing over the past ten years to provide services for more adults for acute, treatment-focussed episodes of care (Jarvis & Grant 2002;Smith 2002). Clients are increasingly receiving a shorter, more medically intensive service, and are then discharged from care, rather than receiving a lower intensity, multiple-problem, more holistic service over a longer period of time.…”

“…Responses to these changes in the form of ambulatory and transitional care services in SWSAHS have been described (Jarvis & Grant 2002;Wilson et al 2001). This paper will describe changes in client profile and service delivery in SWSAHS over the past decade and comment on the way the changing profile reflects policy changes in acute and community health care service provision.…”