ProjectsBuilding Positive Attendance VictoriaIntroductionBuilding Positive Attendance Victoria (BPAV) aims to contribute to the achievement of the Department of Human Services outcome of a skilled and high performing workforce across Victoria1 through improving staff motivation, satisfaction and attendance levels. Background and RationaleAt both National and State levels there are shortages of health workers across a range of disciplines and services. In response to these shortages a variety of programs have been developed to increase the future size and diversity of the health workforce. Escalating health care costs are challenging Governments across the world. Victoria is no exception. Increasing consumer expectations, significant advances in health technology and interventions, and a steady increase in the proportion of older people in the population are all putting pressure on health care budgets. Health service managers are looking for opportunities to improve productivity of existing services as a way of addressing both of these issues. A recent review of benchmarking data undertaken by the Victorian Health Service Management Innovation Council identified a significant variation in the incidence of unplanned absence (‘sick leave’) across the Victorian Public Health Sector. The Council also noted that a number of agencies, such as Southern Health and Ballarat Health, had devoted considerable effort to addressing their variances and had achieved significant results. These results included improvements in staff motivation, satisfaction and attendance levels, as well as a reduction in costs related to unplanned absences. The Council felt that through the provision of direct support and co-ordination it could facilitate the dissemination and adoption of successful strategies to the Victorian Public Health Sector. Added ValueProject outcomes are the product of three factors: (1) the size of effect of the intervention; (2) the reach or penetration of an intervention and (3) the sustainability of the effect. The last factor is crucial. The focus of the Victorian Health Service Management Innovation Council is to work with the Sector in such a way as to assist them to become more capable of conducting system wide projects, maintaining them and initiating others. ‘Capacity-building’ by the Council to enhance the capacity of the Sector to prolong and multiply effects thus represents a ‘value added’ dimension to the outcomes offered by any particular project. Each project will be owned and led by appropriate groups from the Sector. For this project the Directors of Human Resources group will ‘own’ the project, and Southern Health will lead it. In each project the Victorian Health Services Management Innovation Council will provide resource, support and input into the development, implementation and evaluation. As this is the first project for the Victorian Health Services Management Innovation Council, it is also expected that the implementation process will produce a project management model for future projects.
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Sue Leyland 1. Department of Human Services, Department Plan 2006 - 16, page 16 |
