35 Super clinics not quite there yet

Change can be a tricky business in which alignment of interests and resources has to be real and felt. Alternatively, change has to be driven through ruthlessly. The latter is anathema to Healthcare.  The former the real goal.

The development of super clinics requires many interlinking participants to be genuinely aligned if the clinics are to become a reality.  A reality both physically and in the range of intergrated service improvements they provide.  The Australian revealed today claims that seven of the planned 35 GP super clinics were operational were greatly over stated. Six were only complete, with at least two offering little more than conventional GP services. One is being fully funded by the Northern Territory government. All this two years on from the current government promise to fund medical one-stop shops in areas struggling with inadequate medical services.

The centres were to offer after-hours general practitioners, specialists, mental health services, chronic disease management, allied health practitioners and training for medical students and trainee specialists but this range is well beyond what even the present centres are contemplating it seems.
This integration of services in a manner which eliminates the time and movement waste of distributed services is laudable.  Indeed, if the strategy includes ensuring that waste is not recreated (the use of lean thinking on a continuing basis) then the super clinics offer a range of tremendous benefits to all participants, making goal alignment easier.