Kardinia Health Limited received capital funding from the Department of Health and Ageing’s GP Super Clinic Program (the Department’s Super Clinic Program).
The planning phases for the establishment of the GP Super Clinic were undertaken by the General Practitioner’s Association of Geelong, (now known as the Western Victoria Primary Health Network) and Barwon Health
This clinic is a high quality training practice for GP Registrars and the students of medicine, nursing and other allied health professions.
As a dedicated training and academic General Practice, Kardinia Health has state of the art teaching facilities and information technology that are optimized to facilitate teaching and linking with other teaching facilities throughout the Barwon South Western region. This multidisciplinary clinic aims to create models for inter-professional education and primary care delivery that deal with the current issues of GP shortages in rural and regional Australia, an increasing demand for training places and providing team based, chronic disease management in an ageing community.
A mix of allied health workers and nurses work alongside General Practitioners and GP Registrars. This mix determined by local needs and includes a dietitian, physiotherapists, psychologists, mental health clinician, podiatrist, exercise physiologist, diabetes educator, remedial massage therapist and endocrinologist. There is a pharmacy, pathology collection centre and Audiology service in the building.
Whilst the Clinic was funded for its establishment capital costs, it is a self-sufficient not-for-profit concern. It is governed by a Board of Directors with representation from the Western Victoria Primary Health Network, Deakin University and Barwon Health as founding members and includes representatives from a broad skill base in the community.
Kardinia Health provides an exciting and innovative opportunity to deliver a model for primary health care provision which incorporates the values of traditional general practice with multidisciplinary, team based care and an academic research unit in general practice; whilst responding to changing community needs and the pressing need to train the next generation of primary health care providers.
Australian Department of Health and Ageing’s objectives for the GP Super clinic program
