The Wimmera Primary Care Partnership and the communities we serve
The Wimmera Primary Care Partnership is made up of 28 member agencies, including local government, welfare, disability, primary health care, health services, social services and education. We have four health services spread over fourteen campuses and two bush nursing centres. The Wimmera Primary Care Partnership region covers some 28,041 square kilometres and services a population of 35,940 (2016 Census Data) including the Local Government Areas of West Wimmera, Yarriambiack, Hindmarsh and Horsham Rural City.
Our challenges
The Wimmera Primary Care Partnership and the communities of the Wimmera Southern Mallee continue to face a number of challenges including:
- Ageing population – Significant portions of the population are ageing across the Wimmera Southern Mallee which results in pressure on the workforce, service delivery models and modes
- Financial pressures – Prioritising and delivering services within a broader constrained fiscal environment with increasing community expectations of the scope of services provided, changing funding models and ensuring value for health dollars
- Burden of complex and chronic disease – Increasing rate and diversity of complex and chronic disease across the Wimmera Southern Mallee communities
- Community and service expectations – Providing care or connecting to care at the right time, right place each and every time
Whilst there are a number of context challenges that the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership needs to navigate the three greatest challenges directly impacting on us is our:
- Relevance – The need for staff, stakeholders and member organisations to understand who the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership is, why it exists and why that is important to them.
- Value – The expectation that the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership will generate new and additional value for its staff, stakeholders and member organisations.
- Significance – The requirement for the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership to act with skill to deliver value whilst having a positive impact on its member organisations and the communities in which they serve.
Our Opportunities
The key opportunities for the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership to embrace include:
- Forming the right relationships – Forming and maintaining active and complementary relationships within and outside our membership and geographical catchment, capitalising on opportunities to recruit and co-create with cross sector partners
- Improve capability and capacity – Building member organisation capabilities and capacity consistent with the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership strategic objectives and the requirements of the strategic environment
- Learning and innovation agenda – Ongoing development of focused learning and innovation will provide member organisations with the skills and knowledge to identify and meet the communitys’ needs and provide the unique learning experience that diverse healthcare needs bring
- Healthcare reform – Using the reform agenda to build the investment case and momentum for change across member organisations so that improvements are made to their service delivery and operating models that offer tailored localised solutions and the best value for health dollars
- Models of Care – Adapting models of care, building on innovation, streamlined care pathways and new and future technologies to assist member organisations to deliver more effective health services and improved outcomes.
Our Mission
The Wimmera Primary Care Partnership exists to Collectively improve the health and well-being of the Wimmera Southern Mallee communities, reducing health inequality across the region.
The Wimmera Primary Care Partnership mission clearly describes the reason for what we do and the value we create.
The most efficient way to improve the health and well-being of a population is to address the ongoing disadvantage experienced by particular communities and population cohorts. Outcomes across rural and regional cohorts are considerably poorer than the state average across a range of indicators. Our ability to collectively improve the health and well-being of the Wimmera Southern Mallee communities and to reduce health inequality across the region means that investing in, engaging with and utilising the Wimmera Primary Care Partnership makes sense.