Hunter eHealth Network

Who are we?

The Hunter Urban Medicare Local was one of the first Medicare Locals to be announced under the Australian Government’s 2011 primary healthcare reforms. The boundaries for the Hunter Urban Medicare Local are based on the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Port Stephens and Maitland Local Government Areas.

Our role as Hunter Urban Medicare Local will be to coordinate primary health care services, to provide support to primary health care providers, to identify gaps in our local health system and to find ways to address them in our local area. We will reduce fragmentation of care by bringing all the various health professions together, and by assisting patients to negotiate the complex health system.

Formerly the Hunter Urban Division of General Practice, which later became GP Access, the Hunter Urban Medicare Local has a 19 year history of providing the Hunter region with first class access to general practitioners. Our many years of servicing the Hunter has seen us develop programs to assist people with their day to day health care needs, a key example of this being our After Hours service which is the only one of its kind in Australia.

In the future, the community will see an increase in preventative health programs and a system of health care that is simpler to use and with better access to services than ever before.

Hunter Region Statistics.

Estimated population;  490, 000
Aged 65 years and over; 77, 022 (16% of population)
Indigenous Australians; 11, 731 (2.5% of population)
General Practitioners;  470
General Practices; 152
Public Hospitals; 7
Private Hospitals; 7
Community Health Centres; 7

Health areas which have been identified as priorities include pregnancy and the newborn, child health, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, respiratory disease, injury and poisoning, mental health, oral health and communicable diseases. Aboriginal people of the Hunter Urban region have shown to have needs in the following, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hospitalisations, injury and poisoning, and diseases of the respiratory system.

Achievements to date
The Hunter Urban Medicare Local is undertaking the following activities:

• Establishment of the Connecting Care programme, managing chronic disease in the community.
• Established forum for Aboriginal health providers to integrate & co-ordinate service delivery.
• Engage the aged care sector in the PCEHR lead implementation site initiative established via the Aged Care GP Panels initiative and the Aged Care Access Initiative.
• Provide consistently high performance in supporting the uptake of Australian Government programs within the region, including the Practice Incentives Program, and Medicare Benefits Schedule initiatives.
• Lead site for the Australian Government’s Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) initiative.
• Operate one of the leading mental health services within the national Divisions of General Practice Network.

Hunter Division Map.




 

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