Interagency collaboration in primary mental health care: lessons from the Partners in Recovery program.

Background: Collaborative care is a means of improving outcomes particularly for people with complex needs. The Partners in Recovery (PIR) program, established in Australia in 2012, provides care coordination to facilitate access to health and social support services for people with severe and persistent mental illness. Of the 48 PIR programs across Australia, 35 were led by Medicare Locals, the previous Australian regional primary health care organisation and nine involved Medicare Locals as partner organisations.

Networked resilience in rural Australia--a role for health promotion in regional responses to climate change.

Issues Addressed: This paper provides a model for how health promotion teams might establish and support regional collaborations of organisations in a broad response to climate change that enables emergence of multiple strategies tailored to regional needs.

Methods: Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAS) and Organisational Learning informed action to foster a Climate Change Collaboration that engaged in strategies to improve transport options, food security and energy sustainability. Social Network Analysis was used to evaluate the degree to which member organisations became networked, the evolution of key network qualities and the way the organisations were affiliated via their participation in emergent strategies.

Where do students in the health professions want to work?

Background: Rural and remote areas of Australia are facing serious health workforce shortages. While a number of schemes have been developed to improve recruitment to and retention of the rural health workforce, they will be effective only if appropriately targeted. This study examines the factors that most encourage students attending rural clinical placements to work in rural Australia, and the regions they prefer.