Our Priorities

Given the number of strategies in each of the Diabetes, Heart & Stroke and Cancer plans, there was a need to prioritise strategies for the next five years of the Consortium.

There was also a need to consider where opportunities to have overlap between the condition-specific plans existed, to have across-plan strategies having a more holistic approach to chronic disease prevention, management and care.

The process to identify priorities occurred in stages, and involved extensive consultation:

  1. Each condition-specific group prioritised the strategies in their plan, and the Community Reference Group prioritised the strategies in all 3 plans.
  2. Community members, service providers and other members of the Consortium identified Across Plan Priorities.
  3. These Across Plan Priorities were validated and refined by stakeholders.
  4. The Condition Specific Leadership groups and the Community Reference Group reviewed the draft priority document
  5. The Consortium Executive Group critiqued and signed off the final document.

As a result of this process, completed in June 2017, the SA Aboriginal Chronic Disease Consortium Road Map for Action 2017-2021 was developed.

SA Aboriginal Chronic Disease Consortium Road Map for Action 2017-2021

SA Aboriginal Chronic Disease Consortium Road Map for Action 2017-2021 is a document that outlines the priorities across all three plans, “Across Plan Priorities”, as well as some condition specific priorities. It has 10 Priority Areas that cover 27 Priority Strategies. It is likely that achievements in one Priority Area will impact on delivering outcomes in another.

Road Map for Action (Click to view)
Road Map for Action Snapshot (Click to view)

Across Plan Priorities

The 10 Priority Areas are:

  1. Strengthen Social and Emotional Wellbeing: addressing social and cultural determinants of health (3 Strategies)
  2. Prevention and Early Detection: addressing health promotion and screening activities (2 Strategies)
  3. Acute Management: to optimise care provision and ensure equity in service delivery in the acute phase of treatment (3 Strategies)
  4. Ongoing Management: enabling effective coordination and collaboration following initial treatment (2 Strategies)
  5. Improve Access to Services: to enhance health service effectiveness and usage (5 Strategies)
  6. Improve Workforce: to address capacity building and enhancing the Aboriginal workforce (3 Strategies)
  7. Monitoring and Evaluation: to guide policy, resource allocation and future research (3 Strategies)

Condition-specific Priorities

  1. Heart and stroke (2 Strategies)
  2. Cancer (2 Strategies)
  3. Diabetes (2 Strategies)
Road Map for Action Overview - Click to enlarge

Bringing the Road Map to life in 2017/18

Given the wide range of the strategies in the SA Aboriginal Chronic Disease Consortium Road Map for Action 2017-21, there will be two approaches used by the Consortium Coordinating Centre to implement the Road Map.

The Coordinating Centre will take on a “Coordination Role” for six key priority strategies which will have targeted action in 2017-2018. This Coordination Role will involve all interested parties coming together to define and commit towards common outcomes and goals. This may include the Coordinative Centre partnering, advocating, levering and/or leading the actions as well as coordinating ongoing implementation and monitoring activities.

Six key priority strategies for 2017/2018 are:

  • Undertake a state wide approach to improve risk factor identification and screening rates (Action Area: Prevention and Early Detection)
  • Design and implement systematic discharge, referral and follow-up (Action Area: Ongoing Management)
  • Build a monitoring framework that includes ongoing dashboard reporting (Action Area: Monitoring and Evaluation)
  • Ensure that emergency services are culturally appropriate (Action Area: Heart and Stroke)
  • Reduce diabetes related complications (Action Area: Diabetes)
  • Facilitate Aboriginal Cancer Healing Centres and expand roles and capabilities of existing cancer services. (Action Area: Cancer)

The other 18 strategies will be kept within our line of sight in case potential opportunities arise for action by Consortium members and friends. The Coordinating Centre will take on a “Influencing Role” in progressing these strategies, but will not coordinate them. By influencing, the Coordinating Centre will be involved to inform and support the strategies, and this may include advising, advocating, levering, encouraging and linking to projects being driven by Consortium members and friends.