UQ clinics chart the future of healthcare

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Tags: community service, medical research, medicine, summer-2011

With services for the homeless and web-linked information kiosks for patients, UQ’s super clinics are already showing they are not a standard medical practice.

The University of Queensland launched two clinics at Ipswich and Annerley last year with $10 million in funding through the Federal Government’s GP Super Clinics initiative.

UQ Healthcare CEO Darryl Grundy said it was always UQ’s aim for the clinics to break new ground in general practice-based care.

“It was never about opening just another GP practice. It was an opportunity to help fill gaps in current services and well as champion new, patient-focused models of care,” Mr Grundy said.

“We encourage our clinicians to not just prescribe medication, but to prescribe information and our patient health info kiosks help facilitate this.

“The clinics also provide an opportunity to integrate this with UQ’s two core activities – health education and research.”

Because the clinics operate on a not-for-profit basis, patient numbers are not the driving force. This offers greater scope for a focus on integrated, multidisciplinary health care and education.

“We believe effective collaboration between health professionals offers the best care for patients and the unique UQ Super Clinic model provides an excellent opportunity for this,” Mr Grundy said.

At the patient-care level, the clinics focus on areas of specific local need, such as chronic disease.

“They support existing health services, which can find it difficult to provide the complex management needed by chronic disease patients, who need specialist and coordinated care by a range of health professionals,” he said.

In response, UQ Health Care Ipswich has arranged for patients with Type II diabetes, and at high risk of associated complications, to see a specialist sooner and have easier access to the other health professionals they need.

“The clinic saw the gap in services and now has an endocrinologist conducting sessions at the clinic to help meet this local need,” Mr Grundy said.

Working with the local medical community is central to UQ’s super clinic operations.

UQ Health Care Annerley is working to help local homeless people reengage with the community. By working with community service provider Oz Care to coordinate a range of services, planning is now underway for an integrated health centre, including dentists and allied health professionals.

Researchers are also putting the clinics’ new models of care under the microscope and developing future best practice.

By Marlene McKendry

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