Health leaders meet in Kingscliff

Healthcare leaders, experts and representatives gathered at the Pathways to Reform - A Cross Country Exchange for Health Leaders event, which was held at the Mantra on Salt Beach Resort in Kingscliff from 26-29 May. Photo: Pancho Symes.

HEALTHY North Coast has partnered with the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) to help strengthen integrated healthcare across Australia, with health leaders gathering in Kingscliff to discuss future reform.

Healthy North Coast will host IFIC Australia and will support a program of learning, innovation and knowledge sharing tailored to Australia’s health system.

Healthy North Coast CEO Monika Wheeler said the initiative aimed to help health leaders respond to growing pressures on the health system.

“We want better health system leaders who are able to really face the future constraints that we have on the health system,” she said.

“And we need those leaders to be equipped to really take on the big challenges of our time, which is basically reducing hospital admissions and getting people to be using primary health care as their main point of access into the health system.”

Wheeler said integrated care was particularly important in regional areas, where access to services can be more limited than in metropolitan centres.

“We just sometimes don’t have all the services that you can get in the city,” she said.

International speaker Hans Erik Henriksen said countries around the world were facing similar healthcare challenges and could learn from each other’s experiences as demand for services continues to grow.

“But I think you don’t really start to address and solve the issues of healthcare unless you realise, hey, this is so big that we need to do a reform,” he said.