Public Health Network

The Public Health Network is a forum for health professionals working in the community-controlled sector as well as others with Aboriginal primary health care (and public health) expertise.  The PHN is hosted by AMSANT and is supported by our two Public Health Medical Officers and our admin support officer.

An important fact to note is that the PHN is NOT just for clinicians in the Aboriginal Community Controlled sector – it is for all clinicians in the NT interested in primary health care and public health issues in the Aboriginal health sector in the NT. Currently there are 120 people on the Network. We have members from DHF and Menzies, as well as AMSs. We have mostly clinicians, but also a few managers as well as a couple of people involved in policy and research.

The broad aims of the network when it was established in 2006 were:

• To discuss public health issues that affect indigenous health in the NT
  
• To inform clinicians of changes to the health service sector, including changes to specialist services and the allied health sector;
  
• To obtain feedback from clinicians about barriers to providing primary health care including funding, staffing and wider health system issues, that can inform AMSANT’s advocacy and policy work;
  
• To provide information to clinicians about AMSANT’s current policy and advocacy work and to obtain input from clinicians into this work.

Brief History of the PHN – a Network, not an independent action group:

The PHN was first established in June 2006, when AMSANT first got funding for a Senior Medical Officer role. Members of the PHN decided it was to be a forum to discuss issues in common across the NT.  Issues identified by the group were mostly Health Structure Issues such as Medicare, MSOAP (Medical Specialist Outreach Assistance Program), PIRS (Patient Information Recall System), Pharmacy, 19 KPIs, Quality and Safety, ORAC Reviews, Hubs Supports, Clinical Governance, Public Health Positions, Accreditation and Housing for Health Staff.
 

Where Are We Now?

AMSANT:  Since 2007, both AMSANT and DHF staffing has altered significantly.  The staff capacity for support to members has gone from one Senior Medical Officer and one or two other staff in 2006 to more than twenty staff in 2010. Two PHMOs (Public Health Medical Officer), one PIRS Officer, two Accreditation Officers, two CQI Coordinators (Continuous Quality Improvement), one GPET (GP Registrar training) Officer, one Workforce Implementation Policy Officer, two Policy officers, three IT staff (AMSNET program), the Regionalisation Unit & other positions.  The additional staff have been able to establish the much needed networks for CQI, PIRS and Accreditation as identified in the second PHN meeting. We also have some admin support positions to assist with some of the work.

DHF: There have also been some major changes in the structure of DHF Remote Health. There is now a Chief Rural Medical Practitioner for the NT, Senior Rural Medical Practitioners (RMPs – used to be called DMOs) with portfolios –Operations, Education and Training, Chronic Disease, Maternal and Child Health and Youth Health.  DHF also now has Area Service Managers who are responsible for the running of the programs in each of the Health Service Delivery Area.

Where to From Here? 

Redirecting the PHN:

Now that those other networks are being established, it will assist us in narrowing down the scope/aim/objective of the Public Health Network.  Plus there are some aims that aren’t articulated in the original summary that we might wish to add – such as establishing linkages between clinicians with particular interests such as Sexual Health, Child Health, Maternal Health, etc. (We’ve had this suggested to us quite a bit over the past couple of years but weren’t in a position to do it then.)

We also want to facilitate clinicians having input into systems that directly affect their daily work – in particular to give clinical and contextual input to the people representing remote clinicians on various committees and reference groups.

If you are interested in joining the PHN and are a health professional or work for an organisation that works in Aboriginal primary health care in the Northern Territory, please see the attached PHN Directions document and Feedback Form.

    PHN Directions     PHN Feedback Form    Current PHN Bulletin     PHN Bulletin Archives