Patient Care Academy
Who we are and what we do
As the world we operate in continues to change and become increasingly complex, our services are in ever greater demand. While Ambulance Victoria’s primary role is as an emergency pre-hospital medical response provider, we are uniquely placed at the intersection of health and emergency management to tailor our services to meet different needs across local communities, to be system connectors, and to help our patients and their families to be active participants in their health care decisions.
To enable this, AV’s Patient Care Academy (PCA) draws lived experience experts, clinicians, and system partners together to create high-quality, impactful, patient-centred experiences, care pathways and models of care.
Using participatory methods of co-design, we tackle topics that are important to our people and patients, and that offer opportunity for system level change.
Why we exist
The PCA’s goal is to achieve AV’s vision of Best Care for every person, every time – no matter their location, background, type of illness and level of care required.
At its heart, the PCA exits to engage, discuss, and debate complex patient care challenges, and to then develop and implement pathways and models of care that accelerate innovation and deliver improvements in patient care.
AV Care Connect
In 2022, a program of work known as AV Care Connect is introducing more alternative care pathways to our service to better connect patients to the care they need.
AV Care Connect is about supporting our patients to receive Best Care, every time.
With the introduction of each new alternative care pathway, our service is supported to better manage growing demand to meet the increasingly complex needs of the community. This is occurring at a time when we know we must make significant operating model reform to ensure we can support the Victorian community in the future.
Under AV Care Connect, alternative care pathways will support some of our most vulnerable patients such as aged care, palliative care, frequent and complex care needs, and mental health patients to remain in their home environment and avoid unnecessary transport to hospital Emergency Departments.
We know we can do better to connect these patients to more appropriate care in the first instance. That’s the role of AV Care Connect.
Our work to date
Implemented
- TelePROMPT for mental health patients
- RACER for aged care residents
In development
- Frequent and Complex Callers – page coming soon
How you can get involved
We are always looking for people who have an interest in getting involved with our work. If you have a lived experience you would like to share, would like to be an active member of working groups or work in health and want to collaborate then reach out!
If you have any questions about the PCA or would like to get involved – please email us at PatientCare.Academy@ambulance.vic.gov.au
