Our strategic vision for health service delivery in the central desert is to work in partnership with community, government, and private sector stakeholders to ensure all Indigenous people living in the Central Desert have access to high quality health care services.

The 2008–2012 Nggangganawili Aboriginal Health Service Strategic Plan outlines our key priorities and strategies over the next 5 years. It also identifies an important first step in addressing the bigger picture of providing coordinated and quality primary health care across the Central Desert Region.

Significant gains have been made over past years in the way health services are provided to the Indigenous people of the Central Desert. Many challenges still remain. Now the time is right to reflect on these gains and challenges, and build new and innovative approaches to improving health service delivery and health outcomes for Indigenous people and communities.

Nggangganawili Aboriginal Health Service is committed to driving forward a new vision for health service delivery across the Central Desert Region.

Our vision involves working from a regional perspective. It’s about partnerships across the community health sector and with government to build the capacity of existing Aboriginal Medical Services to strengthen the delivery of effective primary health services across the Central Desert Region.

Working in partnership to better coordinate health service delivery is consistent with the Australian Government’s National Strategic Framework for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health 2003-2013 which recognises that ‘resolving the issues underpinning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health problems is a shared responsibility’.

Taking a regional perspective responds to the fact that the Indigenous people in the Central Desert are highly mobile and as a consequence they are likely to access a number of services in the region over their lifetime. Nggangganawili Aboriginal Health Service, for example, has 1,920 current Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, yet the resident Indigenous population is around 450.

Ensuring an up-to-date medical history is available at the point of service when the client presents, therefore, is essential for continuity of care. This is particularly critical for chronic disease management.

Many millions of dollars are invested each year in health services for Indigenous people in the Central Desert. Until we better coordinate data collection and work together more effectively, we won’t be able to track the impact of this investment and its impact on population health outcomes. Better data will give us the important capability to make evidenced-based decisions about health care interventions in the region.  This is why a key element of our strategic vision involves putting the right systems in place to improve access to patient data for medical staff.

Our strategic vision for health service delivery in the Central Desert is based on two fundamental principles:

1. That region-wide access to a system of single client records is central to ensuring safe and high quality health care; and
2. That a partnership approach would allow for Aboriginal Medical Services to build on each other’s expertise, coordinate resources, and provide continuity of care to Indigenous people in the region.

We believe that by working together we can achieve strong outcomes for the region:

• Improved effectiveness of the resources allocated to health care in the Central Desert
• Increased efficiency of service delivery and reduced duplication
• Evidenced-based strategies for health care delivery
• Greater knowledge of the real impacts of the programs and services delivered across the Central Desert

Realising this vision will require all stakeholders to collaborate to develop an action plan for the region that builds our capability and capacity to deliver.