ALISON VERHOEVEN Chief Executive AHHA
Health system has to evolve
Welcome to the December 2019 issue of The
to achieve. Whether it’s health, sport, taxation,
Health Advocate, the sixth and final issue in what
or home loan interest rates, sometimes the rules
has been a busy year for AHHA.
need to be changed to encourage changes in the
Our theme for December is ‘An evolving health system’. Evolve it must, but we wish it would
activity itself. Alternatively, a brave and innovative person or
change more quickly than that, in the direction
group of people need to set up something new and
of person-centred, value-based care that pays
show that it pays off in terms of efficiency and
attention to outcomes as well as inputs.
effectiveness, and then try to ensure that the new
Perhaps we put this sentiment most bluntly in
way is incentivised by the guardians and umpires
our October 2019 media release when we said:
of the system, namely governments at all levels.
‘Time to change the game in health to get the
Even then, it’s not all plain sailing to get good
results we want’. We had just released our Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research Issues Brief, Reforming for value: opportunities for outcome-focused national health policy, written by Dr Kate Raymond from Dental Health Services Victoria. As we said at the time, ‘The days of incentivising
ideas turned into good policy, as our leading event for the year showed. On 18 October 2019 we held the inaugural annual John Deeble Lecture and panel discussion. We were honoured to have the lecture delivered by Professor Nigel Edwards, from the UK’s Nuffield Trust. Nigel spoke most eloquently, firstly on
number of appointments attended instead of the
why good health policy goes bad, then on some
outcomes achieved should be confined to the
practical measures to fix it.
medical waste bin because rising health costs are unsustainable’. ‘Unnecessary or ineffective care needs to be
Excerpts from Part 1 of the lecture (why good health policy goes bad) are available to THA readers elsewhere in this issue. Excerpts from
cut out altogether. And preventive healthcare,
Part 2 (how to fix it) will be published in the
which provides value for money by reducing the
February 2020 edition.
need to seek healthcare in the first place, needs to be prioritised.’ In the end it’s all about evolving (quickly!) to provide the right incentives for what we want 4
The Health Advocate • DECEMBER 2019
Getting back to our evolving health system, we have some interesting perspectives for THA readers this month. For example, Queensland Health’s Nick Steele
