The future of community-centred health services in Australia: 'When too many beds are not enough'.

The authors welcome a constructive debate on the future of community-centred health services. Therefore, we have written this piece in response to an article published by Cunningham in the previous edition of the Australian Health Review (Cunningham, Australian Health Review 2012; 36: 121-124), which was a very limited analysis and misleading critique of our previous contribution to this journal (Rosen et al. Australian Health Review 2010; 34: 106-115).

Assessment of need and capacity to benefit for people with a disability requiring aids, appliances and equipment.

Aim: To develop an equitable system for allocating equipment, aids and appliances to adults with disabilities based on assessment of need and capacity to benefit for use by occupational therapists, who are the main professional group involved in assessing and prioritising applications.

Methods: An assessment tool was developed, pilot tested and field tested at four sites in New South Wales. Assessments were undertaken in parallel with existing systems.

Linkage, coordination and integration: evidence from rural palliative care.

Objective: Review the findings from the evaluations of three rural palliative care programs.

Design: Review by the authors of the original material from each evaluation. The conceptual framework for the review was provided by the work of Leutz, including his distinction between linkage, coordination and full integration.

Priority rating for community care.

This paper, which is an additional nosokinetics paper to accompany those presented in Aust Health Rev 31(1), reports on priority rating through a standardised community care assessment system, based on screening for functional abilities and incorporating additional indicators of need and risk. Routinely collected measures used to generate a priority rating have proven useful in clinical decision making and active demand management at the service entry point. Priority rating is a step towards a more equitable and efficient assessment system.

(Re)form with substance? Restructuring and governance in the Australian health system 2004/05.

The Australian health system has been the subject of multiple reviews and reorganisations over the last twenty years or more. The year 2004-2005 was no different. This paper reviews the reforms, (re)structures and governance arrangements in place at both the national and state/territory levels in the last year.

Lessons from the National Mental Health Integration Program.

Three projects were funded under the national Mental Health Integration Program (MHIP) in 1999, each of which employed a different model aimed at improving linkages between disparate parts of the mental health system. A national evaluation framework guided local evaluations of these projects, and this paper presents a synthesis of the findings. For providers, the projects improved working relationships, created learning opportunities and increased referral and shared care opportunities.

Health services research and development in practice: an Australian experience.

While there is a growing literature on how health services research can inform health policy decisions, the practical challenge is for health services researchers to develop an effective interface with health policy-making processes and to produce outputs that lead to outcomes. The experience of the Centre for Health Service Development at the University of Wollongong, Australia, is used to illustrate the issues so commonly described in the literature and to reflect on our experience of trying to remain viable while producing relevant and valid research. A case study in a specific policy area - namely, the development of case-mix classifications and information systems to inform policy and funding in the subacute and non-acute hospital and community care sectors - is used as a practical example of the research-policy interface.