Older-age volunteering returns the favour
Staying engaged with society is a vital factor in personal wellbeing, especially for retirees. As Robin Osborne finds, local volunteers are deriving great benefits from the help they provide others.
“There’s no doubt volunteer work makes you feel younger”, says Joy Hall who grew up around Lismore and for the past 36 years has been donating significant chunks of her time to helping local people in need.
Meals on Wheels is her current volunteering focus - the sprightly octogenerian helps with home deliveries and serves on the organisation’s committee.
Her view is shared by Philip Penwright, one of around 20 volunteers at the Northern Rivers Community Gateway, which coordinates community support and information resources in the area. Volunteering Northern Rivers is one of the groups under its umbrella.
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- Written by: Robin Osborne
Primary Health Network searches for top projects
The Commonwealth-backed coordinator of the region’s primary health care has launched a North Coast-wide search for innovative and high-performing projects in out-of-hospital care.
Entries will be reviewed by an expert panel, with finalists and winners to be announced at an Awards dinner at Coffs Harbour in September.
The North Coast Primary Health Network’s inaugural Primary Health Care Excellence Awards are designed to showcase the work of health care professionals such as GPs, allied health practitioners, community health workers and social services.
Project submissions will “honour the partnerships, teams and individuals who are working tirelessly to keep the people in our communities healthy and out of hospital,” said NCPHN’s Chief Executive, Dr Vahid Saberi.
“The Awards will provide an opportunity to showcase the considerable unseen efforts that contribute to improvements to health care provided outside of hospitals,” he added.
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- Written by: Robin Osborne
Local Health District picks new CE
After an extensive search to replace long-serving Chief Executive Chris Crawford, Northern NSW Local Health District has looked within its own headquarters - the coincidentally named Crawford House - to choose his successor.
The new CE is Wayne Jones, currently acting in the role, who has held various senior executive roles within the region’s health service. These have included managing Lismore Base Hospital, and being Chief of Staff in the CE’s office.
The selection of Mr Jones was announced today (5 May) by Dr Brian Pezzutti, LHD Board Chair, who noted the new CE’s broad clinical experience in Intensive Care and Cardiology Nursing, combined with an extensive background in health management, service planning and commissioning.
Dr Pezzutti paid tribute to Annette Symes who was acting CE since the start of this year. She will return to her role as the LHD’s Executive Director of Nursing and Midwifery.
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- Written by: Robin Osborne
NZ launches 10-year health plan
Unsuccessful with its push for a new national flag, the New Zealand government has enjoyed more success with the launch of a “refreshed” (its term) health strategy, aimed at tackling the challenges of the decade ahead
‘Future Direction’ has five identified themes about the health system being SMART, People-powered and Closer to home, offering Value and high performance, and operating as One team.
As the document and its companion Roadmap make clear, this idyllic state of affairs has not yet been achieved. Key areas requiring attention include Maori people’s health, and mental health.
On the positive side, 90% of New Zealanders say they are in good, very good or excellent health, and ED waits are the shortest in 11 surveyed Commonwealth countries.
However, NZ, like Australia (and elsewhere) has an ageing population, and faces lifestyle threats such as high obesity rates (30% amongst Pacific island children).
“In summary, our system may be functioning well enough today, but we can’t guarantee that it will be tomorrow… A key to our success in making these improvements will be our ability to work together.”
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- Written by: Robin Osborne
Cloud Servers for General Practice
As more and more services migrate to the web for greater efficiencies and lower cost, GPs are starting to wonder if this is a viable option for at least some of their IT requirements. Peter Machell, principal at HealthIT, outlines the options and the costs.
Cloud computing certainly sounds like a new phenomenon but it’s been in mainstream use since we embraced Hotmail in 1996.
Most of the time, “The Cloud” just means a (virtual) server in a data centre. A data centre is a dedicated home for servers with big pipes to the Internet. There are data centres throughout our capital cities, and some in rural and regional Australia too.
I like the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of cloud computing: "The practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.”
Wikipedia talks about “rapidly provisioned and released (computer resources) with minimal effort” and "sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economy of scale, similar to a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network.”. The first point is true of all clouds while the latter only applies in what I call the Elastic cloud.
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- Written by: Peter Machell, HealthIT
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