CRCATSIH Program 3: Enabling Policy and Systems
Program Leaders: Judith Dwyer / Alwin Chong
Program Manager: Vanessa Harris
Administrative Support Officer: Cheryl Cole
Goal: To develop knowledge and evaluate tools and resources that will enable the users of research |
What’s the program about?
‘Enabling Policy and Systems’ addresses the fundamental constraints and challenges that contribute to poor performance in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health policy and programs.
Previous research conducted with the support of our predecessor organisation, the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH), and others has highlighted the complex administrative and governance environments within which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services operate.
While there is no estimate of how much health system dysfunction contributes to the health gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and other Australians, it is clear that greater administrative and operational efficiencies will pave the way for improved provision of health care to Australia’s First Peoples.
The program’s ultimate aim is to improve the capacity of health care providers to implement programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people more effectively.
Scope:
Research and capacity building activity will be undertaken across three main areas:
- Decision-making and policy and program planning and implementation by governments.
- The capacity, composition and structure of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workforce.
- Organisational effectiveness in Aboriginal community controlled health services as well as other health care providers.
The program will also address the macro-system issues influencing whether and how to use outputs that are produced in the other two key CRCATSIH Program areas – Healthy Start, Healthy Life; and Healthy Communities and Settings.
Stakeholders:
The primary end-users of Program 3 outputs will be managers and decision makers in:
- Australian governments
- health authorities
- professional and industry bodies
- Aboriginal community controlled health services and other health care providers
- educational institutions
- workforce recruitment and development agencies
- providers of information/communication technology.
Current research
- The role of planning processes in implementing National Partnership Agreements in Indigenous health: understanding process and evaluating effectiveness
- Options for enduring government responsibility for Aboriginal health
- Funding, accountability and results for Aboriginal health services – Closing the policy implementation gap? (FAR Project)
Future research
Current projects
The role of planning processes in implementing National Partnership Agreements in Indigenous health: Understanding process and evaluating effectiveness (phase 1)
The need to develop effective processes to align programs and policy with community needs and values is increasingly being seen as critical to the practical and political success of government initiatives. The aim of this project was to develop a theoretical framework for analysis of agreements and planning processes in Indigenous health, particularly in relation to how they operate as mechanisms to support community participation in higher level policy development.
Options for enduring government responsibility for Aboriginal health
In Australia, government responsibility for the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is diffuse and has not been defined as a long-term obligation in the way it has for Indigenous peoples in comparable countries (e.g. Canada and New Zealand). This project will result in a policy paper that outlines the main legislative and policy options for establishing enduring government responsibility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health that are potentially applicable in the Australian setting, including exemplars from comparable countries. The paper was launched on 5 December 2011 - Legally Invisible — How Australian Laws Impede Stewardship and Governance for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health.
Funding, accountability and results for Aboriginal health services – Closing the policy implementation gap? (FAR Project)
This project seeks to partner with funders and providers in two Australian States/Territories which are moving to implement reforms, in order to study them as they develop and generate evidence about what works and why. The planned reforms generally aim to make primary health care (PHC) for Aboriginal communities more effective through improvements in the amount and/or methods of funding; by streamlining accountability measures; through changes in the governance of health care providers (in keeping with the principles of community control); and in the ways that governments fulfil their stewardship responsibilities for the strength and sustainability of the health care system.
The reforms are based on the intention that governments and the PHC sector will work together in some ways that are fundamentally different from current practice (although more in line with official policy goals). This project will focus on the transfer/ regionalisation processes in two jurisdictions, and will examine the changes that enable or support this shift towards community controlled healthcare delivery.
Future research
Workforce
A Roundtable focused on developing the workforce research agenda for Program 3 was held in September 2011. Experts from the practice, policy and research arenas convened to shape a research agenda that is relevant to current needs and policy dilemmas. For information on outcomes of the roundtable download the Workforce Roundtable Notes and go to Call for Expressions of Interest.