Better Skills, Best Care - Workforce Design Strategy
Upcoming events
To support the Workforce Redesign Strategy, a number of workshops
and other initiatives will be advertised as they become available.
Introduction
The availability of a suitably skilled workforce is essential
if the Department of Human Services (DHS) is to sustain an effective
human services system into the future. The Better Skills, Best
Care strategy seeks to encourage health services to explore new
and redesigned work roles and provide support to pilot and roll
out initiatives. The emphasis is on developing roles that will
provide better outcomes for patients, promote greater work satisfaction
for staff and contribute to more efficient and sustainable health
services.
Poster - Better
Skills, Best Care Overview - 2007 (PDF 80k)
Role Specific Projects
As part of Better Skills, Best Care (BSBC) Stage 1 strategy, the department funded 36 role specific projects in 2005-06 to examine locally based opportunities for workforce innovation. These pilots ranged from trialling amended support and professional roles in existing acute, subacute, community and residential services, to the development of a workforce design strategy for new services such as super clinics and an elective surgery centre. The Better Skills Best Care stage 1 final report - November 2007 (PDF file 1.04MB) provides an overview of the piloted roles and project impacts.
As part of the rollout of these new and amended support roles, the department has engaged a number of the pilot leads from the allied health assistant pilots to act as mentors to assist health and community service staff seeking to implement a similar role.
Health and community services planning to implement Cert IV in allied health assistant roles are able to contact these pilot leads to seek practical advice, mentoring support and guidance. A summary of the support roles piloted through BSBC Stage 1 and the contact details for the pilot leads who have agreed to provide mentoring services to other health services seeking to implement similar roles is available. See: Better Skills Best Care Stage 1: Piloted Support Roles & Pilot Contacts - October 2008 (PDF file 76KB)
In early 2008, representatives for the Service and Workforce Planning Branch (SWP) travelled to 12 regional locations and presented information on the development of career pathways, the benefits of the Certificate IV in Allied Health Assistance (Cert IV in AHA) qualification, the ability of health services to negotiate training that meets local needs and practical demonstration of role redesign - Workforce redesign overview - October 2008 (PDF file 153KB)
A list of Victorian Registered Training Organisations (RTO) who are able to deliver Cert IV in AHA qualification (as at 31 July 2008) and a brief outline of the units they are offering and details for the appropriate contact are available below.
Victorian Registered Training Organisations (RTO) with Cert III and Cert IV on scope as at 31 July 2008 (PDF file 48KB)
Contact details of Registered Training Organisations with Cert IV on scope as at 31 July 2008 (PDF file 61KB)
Better
Skills, Best Care Strategy Summary - revised May 2006 (PDF
52kb)
Better
Skills, Best Care - Summary of projects (PDF
17kb)
Better
Skills, Best Care - Summary of roles 2005/06 (PDF
72kb)
- Three of the pilots in the above summary focus on mental health
support roles.
Better
Skills, Best Care - Psychiatric service officers pilot (PDF
47kb)
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Next Steps
The next step is to inform the broader health sector of the roles
piloted. Health services may then wish to consider these roles
within their local context for local implementation where appropriate.
The Workforce
redesign: implementing change strategy (PDF file 42KB) has therefore
been developed to raise awareness, facilitate uptake of the roles
and to remove barriers to workforce change, and therefore assist
health services that wish to adopt the roles.
Information and Resources
Workforce Redesign Workshop Series November 2007 presentations
Role based resources
Resources have been developed around many of the successfully piloted
stage 1 roles.
Service-wide workforce design
DHS, in partnership with the Victorian Health Services Management
Innovation Council (VHISMIC), is exploring opportunities for
more systemic and systematic change.
In
November 2005, Victorian health services were invited to express
interest in hosting a service-wide project to investigate comprehensive
workforce design opportunities. As a result, seven hospitals are
undertaking Better
Skills, Best Care service-wide
workforce design projects in the three identified priority service-streams:
- Anaesthetics at the Alfred Elective Surgery
Centre
- Intensive care at Geelong Hospital and Dandenong
Hospital
- Emergency departments at Kyabram, Warrnambool,
Casey and the Austin hospitals.
Sites have identified a number of potential roles to
pilot with discussions and consultations currently underway.
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Tools
To support and inform the Better Skills, Best Care strategy, DHS
accessed the UK Modernisation Agency’s skills mix
analysis and workforce design tools. These resources have provided
guidance for the process of health workforce role design and were
used in each BSBC pilot to help develop amended roles and to implement
change. These tools, known as Improvement Leaders’ Guides,
may be applied to any role in any part of the health care journey.
The aim of the guides is to raise awareness of the different aspects
of service improvement and introduce a range of models and ideas.
The Improvement Leaders’ Guides are best used sequentially.
General Improvement Skills (Foundation ideas)
Improvement
knowledge and skills (PDF File 170kb)
Involving
patients and carers (PDF File 193kb)
Process
mapping, analysis and redesign (PDF File 172kb)
Working
with groups (PDF File 151kb)
Evaluating
improvement (PDF File 113kb)
Process and Systems Thinking (Basic tools and techniques)
Measurement
for improvement (PDF File 142kb)
Managing
capacity and demand (PDF File 217kb)
Working
in systems (PDF File 203kb)
Improving
flow (PDF File 196kb)
Personal and Organisational Development (Further tools and techniques)
Managing
the human dimensions of change (PDF File 149kb)
Building
and nurturing an improvement culture (PDF File 169kb)
Redesigning
roles (PDF File 124kb)
Leading
improvement (PDF File 120kb)
Skilling Victoria
The part you can play (PDF file 594KB)
These materials have been developed by the Changing Workforce
Program in the English National Health Service.
Work analysis report
During 2004 and 2005, consultants commissioned by the department
documented and analysed workflows and roles in emergency departments,
intensive care units and radiology departments in four public hospitals
in metropolitan and regional Victoria.
The consultants used
a workflow mapping approach, supplemented with personal interviews
and process analysis workshops with diverse groups from the various
departments and their “customers”, including patients,
at each of the hospitals.
The final report, below, describes
how work is done and by whom, what work is performed and what workforce
innovations have arisen to meet local challenges at those participating
health services. Not surprisingly the report documents significant
and varied changes to workforce roles driven by internal, external
and professional factors.
The workflow maps produced for each site (while unique to the
participating hospital) provide clear pictures of how patients
move through emergency and intensive care services, and were used
to inform the service-wide projects described above.
 FINAL REPORT
- WORK ANALYSIS PROJECT: EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, INTENSIVE CARE UNIT AND RADIOLOGY DEPARTMENT - REPORT TO THE
VICTORIAN DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES -
June 2005 (PDF File 610kb)
APPENDIX TO FINAL REPORT
- WORK ANALYSIS PROJECT: EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT, INTENSIVE CARE UNIT AND RADIOLOGY DEPARTMENT - REPORT TO THE
VICTORIAN DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES -
May 2005 (PDF File 118kb)
Questions?
For more information about the Better Skills, Best Care strategy
or any of the pilots, contact workforce@dhs.vic.gov.au
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