Facebook icon Twitter icon Forward icon

Wednesday 1  March

Chronic disease management grants released

SEMPHN is offering 12 grants of up to $100,000 each to General Practices, community services and Aboriginal health services to improve access to primary care services and provide care coordination for new and existing patients who have a complex or chronic condition.

To be eligible for a grant, your service must be able to demonstrate that you have:

  • effective care coordination strategies currently in place
  • the capacity to provide care to a minimum of 100 new or existing patients who are not currently receiving care co-ordination support, and
  • the capacity to implement and identify an appropriate activity to improve care for patients with a complex or chronic condition.

The activity must focus on at least two of the priority demographic groups in the SEMPHN region.

An information session for this tender will be held 6.30pm 14 March at SEMPHN's Heatherton office, 11 Corporate Drive, Heatherton. Register for the information session here.

For information about the tender as it's released, register your interest via SEMPHN's Tenderlink page.

General Practice and chronic disease management - grants coming soon

In the coming weeks, SEMPHN will release grant opportunities to build or strengthen capacity in General Practice for effective chronic disease management - specifically, by boosting or improving General Practice internal systems and processes.

As the Commonwealth Health Care Homes (HCH) trial approaches, SEMPHN recognises that many General Practices across high-needs geographic areas may need extra support to build capacity towards eventually becoming a Health Care Home for their patients. 

Register your interest for these grants on SEMPHN's Tenderlink page.

Grant funding awarded to improve immunisation rates

Berwick Healthcare and City of Greater Dandenong have been awarded grants to help increase childhood immunisation rates, particularly within ‘hotspot’ areas across the South Eastern Melbourne region.

The services will be delivered from April 2017 to June 2018.

Berwick Healthcare will develop and implement a new pathway to improve access to childhood immunisation services in the City of Casey. Berwick Healthcare will collaborate with local services, such as Maternal and Child Health Services and surrounding General Practices, to create new links for families. There will also be an emphasis on creating awareness on patient reminders and introducing immunisation catch-up strategies.

The City of Greater Dandenong will strengthen its relationship with Maternal Child and Health Services to improve childhood immunisation uptake, particularly within hard-to-reach community groups.The City of Greater Dandenong will also focus on patient reminders and catch-up strategies, including home visits.

An open tender process was used to commission the services.

beyondblue to deliver low intensity mental health interventions in Dandenong

beyondblue has been successful in receiving funding to pilot the delivery of low intensity mental health interventions in Dandenong – an area of high mental health need.

The pilot is part of SEMPHN's lead site role to develop and model innovative approaches to regional planning, integration and stepped care in primary mental health care.

Beyondblue will deliver a multifaceted service offering peer support to people with, or at risk of, experiencing mild mental illness. This will be done via a pilot of the following initiatives from March 2017 to June 2018:

  • A telephone and email based support helpline
  • Peer training, education and support sessions
  • A peer online forum
  • A website portal with access to digital resources

An open tender process was used for the commissioning of the services.