An expanded network of community health centres with services targeted to the needs of different population centres will help reduce the need for hospital admissions, the Health Minister believes.
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Rachel Stephen-Smith said more community based care services would give doctors more confidence to discharge patients from the emergency department if they could be certain of a follow-up appointment.
This would be simpler than discharging a patient with instructions to visit their general practitioner as the hospital could guarantee the future care required, she said.
"With the implementation of the digital health record right across all of our hospital and health services, we'll be able to make those appointments really easily," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
A health infrastructure plan update, released by the ACT government on Tuesday, identified Conder, Griffith, Ginninderry and Casey as the four preferred locations for new community health centres.
Ageing community health facilities would also be the subject of a review to inform a program of long-term upgrades, worth between $50 million and $100 million, over the next decade.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the new health centres would have services targeted to the needs of the area where they would be built.
"As we see the population ageing and the incidence of chronic disease emerging, we know that our current community health centres are really bursting at the seams," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
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Some of the health services would be different depending on the location of the community health centre, she said.
"I probably would point to something like south Tuggeranong or the inner south, where there is an ageing population in those areas, versus North Gungahlin, where you have a prevalence of new migrants, for example, families with young children," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
"And so some of those services will differ, but many of them will be the same as well."
The health infrastructure plan also sets out the government's intention to build a new $1 billion hospital at the former Calvary Public Hospital in Bruce, which it took over on Monday and renamed North Canberra Hospital.
Construction of the new hospital in Bruce is expected to commence "mid-decade", the government's plan said.
"The ACT government is investing $64.2 million over two years to progress this project to detailed design, with an amount provisioned for construction," the plan said.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
