Better Care Victoria Innovation Fund
The Victorian Government established the Better Care Victoria (BCV) Innovation Fund to help the sector identify, scale and embed innovation effectively.
Better Care Victoria is pleased to announce the launch of an additional seven sector-led innovation projects, which have been funded as part of BCV’s statewide innovation fund for 2016–17.
These projects are in addition to the first 15 innovation projects launched by the Minister for Health, the Hon. Jill Hennessy MP, in August 2016.
These 22 projects provide an exciting opportunity to support sector-led healthcare innovation in regional and metro services, with six regional and 16 metro innovation projects funded. The projects are expected to:
- improve access to services through their focus on reducing demand on emergency departments, outpatients and surgical waiting lists, and inpatient beds
- deliver clear benefits in relation to quality and safety.
Read summary information about the new projects.
Read about all the projects on BCV's new website.
New website for Better Care Victoria
BCV has now launched its new website!
This is a place to learn more about BCV, meet the team, board and committee members, and discover tools and knowledge about best-practice healthcare innovation and improvement.
You can find information about BCV’s Innovation Fund and recently announced sector-led innovation projects. You can connect with others involved in healthcare innovation through our new online forum, SectorConnect, and explore tools and guides that support best practice.
Explore the new site and send through your feedback and suggestions for site improvements.
About Better Care Victoria
The Victorian Government is investing in and improving Victoria's health system to ensure all Victorians get the right care, in the right place, at the right time.
Better Care Victoria was a key recommendation from the Travis Review - the most comprehensive audit ever undertaken on the capacity of Victoria's hospitals - and has been established to deliver and sustain the highest quality of care for Victorian patients through the identification, scaling and embedding of innovation across the Victorian health system.
Better Care Victoria recognises that many ideas that will help solve the challenges facing our system today already exist. They are happening in wards and clinics across the state, or they are in the minds of our dedicated doctors, nurses and allied health staff who are working every day to deliver the best care to Victorian patients.
Too often however, these great ideas have not had the resources to lift them to a broader level of impact. Taking these ideas and scaling them up will give Victorians access to better quality of care across the state.
Better Care Victoria will achieve this by:
- providing funding and hands-on support for sector-led innovation projects
- supporting the development of improvement and change capability across the sector
- sharing and dissemination of good practice across the sector.
Better Care Victoria has an independent board, chaired by Dr Douglas Travis and comprising of senior health sector and innovation specialists, to advise the Minister for Health on health sector innovation and investment of the Better Care Victoria Innovation Fund.
Joining Dr Travis on the Board is a wealth of clinical and leadership experience including Ms Kellie O'Callaghan, Associate Professor Harvey Newnham, Mrs Wendy Wood, Dr Victoria Atkinson, Ms Robyn Hudson, and Ms Janet Matton. Also providing expert advice is Dr Bronwyn Morkham, Mrs Sue Williams and Mrs Jacqueline Phillips.
A Better Care Victoria Secretariat, located in the Department of Health & Human Services, will help to implement the Board's recommendations and provide tangible day-to-day innovation support to the sector.
Better Care Victoria has identified five initial focus areas for sector-led innovation projects:
- Chronic complex medical patients
- Outpatients
- Care outside the hospital walls
- Variance in practice in delivering defined areas of care
- 24 hour health system.
While innovation is already an essential part of everyday business for service providers, the investment in Better Care Victoria will provide the sector with much greater support to take innovation to the next level and deliver even greater improvement to patient care and hospital capacity in Victoria.
The Minister for Health has provided the Board with a Letter of Expectations for 2016-17 (available in Downloads) articulating the Government’s priorities and objectives for Better Care Victoria.