Annual Report
2020-2021
Empowering people to live their best life
Empowering people to live their best life
We work to address the root causes of vulnerability, prevent disease and promote lifelong health outcomes for people in our community.
Our role is also supporting people to self-manage long-term health conditions, such as diabetes and mental ill-health, with multidisciplinary teams delivering community-based programs in a comfortable non-acute setting.
We also support people, including older people and people with disability, to stay living at home longer and to live well in their community. A broad range of primary health services such as occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech therapy, and in-home and community care services, such as domestic assistance and personal care can be tailored to an individual’s needs.
We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people and other people of the Kulin nations on whose unceded lands our community takes place. We respectfully recognise Elders past and present. We are committed to inclusive communities.
It’s fair to say that the year leading up to my retirement has been one of great changes and challenges.
As we continued to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were faced with the ongoing challenge of keeping our clients and staff safe, while also delivering essential services to support the health and wellbeing of our communities. I’m incredibly proud of the way the organisation has thrived during adversity, and how staff have continued to innovate and adapt service delivery to meet the needs of clients during a crisis.
Our ability to care for our communities during difficult times is due in no small part to partnerships we maintain with health providers in our region. Through these partnerships we have been able to support initiatives such as the High Risk Accommodation Response (HRAR) and COVID Care program supporting those isolating at home, as well as testing and screening efforts during the outbreak’s peaks.
I was pleased to oversee our transition to one name, which is a major strategic goal we have been working towards over the past three years. I am confident that uniting all services under the name healthAbility will help to strengthen the organisation’s presence in the community, increase opportunities for future growth, and provide an improved experience for clients.
One of my personal highlights for the year was being able to host a celebration event for all staff in May. It was wonderful to connect and catch up with colleagues face-to-face, and to acknowledge their extraordinary sustained resilience, energy and expertise in caring for the community during such testing times. We were privileged to have Eltham MP Vicki Ward in attendance to deliver a special message of thanks and support from both her and on behalf of Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley.
I was also able to say my goodbyes to staff at a virtual celebration in July. I was incredibly moved by the heartfelt wishes and messages of support I received. I feel truly honoured to have been able to lead such a passionate, committed, caring and kind group of people for almost 10 years.
The Board have continued to provide strong strategic direction and courageous and visionary planning for an uncertain future. They have been particularly supportive of myself and the staff during this challenging year, and I am grateful for their leadership.
The partnerships in our region have continued to strengthen as we have worked together even more closely during the pandemic. I would particularly like to thank the CEOs of many other health services for their support and collaboration in focusing on the overall health system and how we can best support our communities.
My decision to retire was not an easy one to make, but I am looking forward to spending more time with the most important people in my life - my family.
I feel that I am leaving healthAbility in a strong position, and I have every confidence that Agata’s leadership and passion will steer the organisation in a positive direction during this new and exciting era.
Our new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Agata Jarbin commenced her role on 22 July 2021.
As our organisation moves towards a new and exciting era under the one name, healthAbility, we are thrilled to welcome Agata to our team and wider community.
Agata brings to the role extensive experience in undertaking transformational change for a range of organisations, and leading teams to achieve outstanding results in the public, not-for-profit and private sectors.
For the past six years, Agata has led the not-for-profit organisation ermha365, who provide complex mental health and disability services. During her time as Director and Board Chair, Agata enabled the organisation to thrive and expand during a challenging period.
Prior to her role at ermha365, Agata held a number of executive positions, including two years as Chief Executive Officer at the Accident Compensation Conciliation Service, and five years at State Trustees in several senior and executive roles. In both of these organisations, Agata grew revenue and client satisfaction, improved profitability, and implemented new IT and business systems while delivering new services.
While she is a skilled leader and experienced CEO, it is Agata’s passion and commitment to achieving exceptional health outcomes for people, along with her extensive knowledge of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and support services, that will be truly valuable in helping us to achieve our vision for people in our community to enjoy better and longer lives.
Welcome Agata!
Thank you to our Board Chair John Rasa for producing his own video update remotely while in lockdown.
This year Board Director Jane Daniels celebrates 20 years on the healthAbility Board, after commencing her term in 2001. We’d like to thank Jane for her contributions and commitment during this time, and for her continuing dedication to the work of our organisation and the health sector.
We’d also like to acknowledge our entire Board for their strong governance, leadership and for guiding and supporting our strategic direction. Find out more about our Board.
During the 2020-2021 financial year, 20,811* clients received a service.
We delivered a total of 110,447 appointments and client contacts, including 8,210 telehealth appointments.
*COVID-19 restrictions limited our dental services to emergency treatment only for a significant portion of the year and our After Hours GP Clinic ceased operations. This resulted in a drop in client numbers compared to the previous year.
We established a dedicated team servicing the eastern Melbourne area for Support Coordination, and continued to provide ongoing and vital services and supports for NDIS Participants through COVID-19.
Our Home Care Packages team has expanded and now includes three Care Managers, an Occupational Therapist and a Physiotherapist.
We received funding from the Bendigo Bank to run additional Paediatric sessions for vulnerable families.
The Smile Squad has expanded and now has two teams in Box Hill, and one team in Eltham. Dental staff have been assisting with COVID-19 testing at Eastern Health and the COVID Positive clinic, and High Risk Accommodation Response (HRAR) clients have been given priority access to dental services.
We expanded our mental health services during the pandemic by partnering with Wellways to deliver Psychosocial Support Services across Melbourne’s east, and commenced delivering HeadtoHelp programs.
We entered a Connect4Health Alliance agreement with Access Health and Community, to provide greater access to health and support services for our communities.
Community Health continued to demonstrate its intrinsic value to our health system during the pandemic by being able to rapidly and flexibly fill system gaps as well as localise and personalise preventative and responsive care.
Additionally, we innovated and adapted these core services to ensure an appropriate service mix was delivered where, when and how customers needed during this crisis. Leveraging our learning opens a range of service innovations and partnerships for the betterment of customers, communities and the entire health ecosystem going forward, especially in the realm of chronic illness.
Our specialist clinicians proactively reached out to the vulnerable in our community to provide holistic support. Our unique knowledge of our community, deep existing partnerships and flexible services made this possible.
True sector-wide collaboration with Hospitals, Primary Health Networks, GPs and other community health providers enabled seven day per week health, wellbeing and social services to those tested positive for COVID-19, outside the clinical setting, preventing further transmission.
Improved place based infection control and containment by establishing wellbeing, social and community engagement for this high-risk group, blending our local knowledge and services in partnership with other regional agencies.
Based on our local knowledge, using our experience and working with our partner agencies, we established two additional full service sites and launched telehealth and remote mental health support to our diverse community
Partnered with Eastern health by providing our site to run testing clinics for different cohorts. This included healthcare workers, outbreak response and elective surgery screening. We also provided resources to support the high rise towers and other hotspots
Quickly found new ways to flexibly deploy our clinicians and other staff alongside the safe operations of face to face services. For an extended period, we bulk billed or entirely waived fees.
We are deeply connected to our community and we know how to prevent and treat issues, in and outside the clinical setting, by applying local resources quickly and flexibly.
Our deep relationships across the sector mean we can work with trust to quickly setup, deliver, and innovate as the need (and partnership) requires. This underpins our ability to work holistically and bring both medical and social models of care to each instance.
Our impact was demonstrated in our COVID-19 responses and hinges on how we personalise responses to each family. From health and wellbeing, to social and literacy, personalisation ensures the right service, where, when and how it is needed.
The alliance of community health, GP’s, allied health and hospitals execute public health policy by applying a local lens. Community health fills the gaps that appear when applying this local lens to policy. Additionally, community health gathers evidence to evaluate and influence policy.
Community health is the flexible element in the health system. Its operating model, corporate structure and funding means it can flex to quickly meet needs. COVID-19 saw us demonstrate this at pace, based on the community health model of prevention and chronic care delivered flexibly.
Hospital care is expensive and is about episodic treatment.Community Health’s hybrid medical and social model is about prevention, ongoing and coordinated holistic care – without the overhead. The prevention and holistic economic case has been made and community health sits in this model.
The Community Health model drives a positive ripple (multiplier) impact. This impact is felt immediately and for years to come. Better prevention and self management is ‘catchy’. For each positive activity a consumer takes on, it encourages others to do some of the same.
There is significant acknowledgement that educating and treating people outside clinical settings, before and after acute care is needed, saves significant money and clinical capacity.
What we have learned can be cost effectively leveraged for chronic conditions like Frail Aged, Diabetes, Heart Health and Obesity and we are working with our local collaborators todo just that.
Community health’s individual focus achieves broader public health outcomes and individual health goals by understanding local community’s needs, co-designing services and modalities with partners and customers and rapidly and cost effectively implementing them.
Flexible funding from multiple sources enables Community Health to not only fill gaps but also create synergies across the system that are more than the sum of the parts in delivering more and better outcomes.
As a key part of our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been working with partners across our regions to meet the increased need for mental health supports during this time.
Along with our existing range of mental health services, and programs including the After Hours Mental Health Nursing Service and LIFT/STEPS programs, during the pandemic we expanded our services to help provide timely and appropriate mental health supports to people in our communities.
This expansion includes the delivery of Psychosocial Support Services in partnership with Wellways. As the lead community health partner, we are working with Access Health and Community, Inspiro Community Health, Banyule Community Health and Nexus Primary Health to provide psychosocial supports to people across eastern Melbourne.
We also established HeadtoHelp hubs in partnership with Access Health and Community and the Eastern Melbourne PHN, with the ability to provide telehealth and remote mental health support to our diverse communities.
Our mental health teams work to support children, youth and adults of all ages living with a mental health concern, and collaborate across service areas, programs and regions to provide integrated, multidisciplinary care to meet the unique needs of each client.
These stories showcase how we support people in our communities to enjoy better, longer lives.
As part of our video series 'Carer Voices - Hear Me See Me', we hear from Stella, who is a full-time carer for her mother Iris. Stella explains what it means to be a carer, and describes how she looks after her own wellbeing and gets support from the carers groups at healthAbility.
While access to the internet and digital devices is becoming increasingly important in our everyday lives, many people in society still face barriers when it comes to digital access. To help bridge the digital divide in our communities, our Health Promotion team is working with community health partners on a Digital Inclusion project that aims to help our clients and community members to become more digitally connected.
We have worked in partnership with three Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) to develop Balit Booboop Narrkwarren, a culturally adapted model of the Baby Makes 3 program designed to reach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families who aren’t currently accessing mainstream services.
Since September 2020, healthAbility staff have been involved in the High Risk Accommodation Response (HRAR) Program, delivering support and COVID-19 prevention and planning activities to residents living in high-risk housing.
Thanks to a grant from the Victorian Government's Supporting Carers Locally Grants Program, in April our carers group enjoyed a day out at Alowyn Gardens in the Yarra Valley. It was a chance for carers to meet each other, enjoy a day out in beautiful surroundings, chat over lunch and have a few hours where they could do something different, just for themselves.
Smile Squad is a Victorian Government funded program that provides free dental care for all Victorian public primary and secondary school students. The program provides dental treatment to students at school, which is carried out in mobile clinics and dental vans.
healthAbility is currently servicing 26 schools in phase one of the Smile Squad program. We have two Smile Squad teams based at Box Hill, and one team based at Eltham, with more staff being recruited.
Oral Health Therapists in the Smile Squad team are trained to check teeth, provide treatments, and offer preventative care and oral health coaching. Dental Assistants work alongside Oral Health Therapists to perform administrative tasks and prepare students for examinations and treatment.
We have partnered with Access Health and Community to provide allied health supports to selected kindergarten services in the Inner East metropolitan region, under the Department of Education School Readiness Initiative.
For eligible services, our children’s team speech pathologists, occupational therapists and psychologists collaborate with educators, families and children in the kindergarten service to achieve the goals identified by the services, whilst building on existing skills that improve outcomes for all the children in their care.
To help engage with local young men who may be experiencing struggles with emotional regulation, anxiety or anger, our Counsellor Luke held a 'Didgeridoo Mindfulness' program in May this year.
As well as teaching participants how to make and play their own PVC didgeridoo, the program aimed to address and teach mindfulness and breathing techniques through the use of didgeridoos, and create an environment for young men who may not otherwise seek help to talk and share personal concerns with a counsellor. Many of the participants showed a keen interest in continuing to develop their didgeridoo skills, and learnt mindfulness and meditative breathing techniques that can have great long-term benefits. The program is a wonderful example of how our mental health team works to connect with local young people and support their mental health in creative and engaging ways.
On Saturday 5 December 2020 some movers and shakers got their groove on at our Grooving in the Cloud - Virtual Dance Party. Supported by a grant from the Nillumbik Shire Council, the event was held in recognition of International Day of People with Disability, which is celebrated annually on December 3.
We teamed up with Nillumbik Shire Council to deliver the Council’s Women’s Community Leadership and Connections Program, which aims to develop emerging women leaders across all areas of Nillumbik’s community.
Last year’s review of the Integrated Diabetes Education and Assessment Service (IDEAS) revealed the service has potentially saved an incredible $7 million in acute health care costs in the Eastern Metropolitan Region over the past three years.
A lot has changed since we first started serving our community 45 years ago.
Our family of services and staff has grown to adapt to these changes, always striving to help people in our communities to enjoy better and longer lives.
This year we have united all of our services together under one name, to truly bring our community together. From mid-2021, Carrington Health, Box Hill Family Dentistry and Healthy Bite Dental moved to one name - healthAbility. Moving to one name enables us to deliver a better experience for our clients, and create a more unified organisation for our staff and stakeholders.
We have developed an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to define the essence of our organisation, capture why people are proud to work here, and help attract new employees. An EVP articulates what an organisation offers its people and why people want to work there.
We took a collaborative approach to developing our EVP, gaining feedback and input from our leadership team and employees to help us understand why people choose to work at healthAbility and what’s unique about the organisation and our people.
Although our clients are at the heart of what we do and we strive to positively impact our communities and those who need it most, the wellbeing of our employees is just as important.
When joining healthAbility’s supportive, kind, caring and ethical culture, you are welcomed by multi disciplinary teams passionate about the health and wellbeing of clients and communities, from prevention through to specialist care, and passionate about continually learning and building on their areas of expertise.
We embrace this passion and are values driven, offering careers with meaning and environments that are flexible, evolving, creative and connected.
Through our consultations with staff, we agreed on the seven key themes that make up our Employee Value Proposition:
Our community – We have been serving our local communities for the past 40 years. Their health and wellbeing is our priority, from prevention through to speciality care. We want people in our community to enjoy better and longer lives.
Our clients – We put all aspects of a client’s wellbeing at the heart of what we do. We believe access to a multi disciplinary team helps us ensure our clients feel connected, supported and well. We go the extra mile to make this happen.
Our colleagues – When you join healthAbility, you will have people who are equally as passionate working with you by your side; passionate about the health and wellbeing of their clients and communities, and passionate about building on their areas of expertise. We embrace this passion and offer careers with meaning.
Our culture – We have a supportive and welcoming culture. We are kind to each other and care about the health and wellbeing of our People as well as our clients. We act ethically and morally.
Our values - We are grounded in our shared values of integrity, collaboration, innovation and equity. We collectively believe in making a positive impact on our communities and in helping those who need it most.
Our flexibility – We are large enough to offer choice and small enough to ensure our people feel connected to each other. We give our employees the flexibility to schedule their day and to work across multiple sites.
Our adaptability – We know community health is always changing and we strive to stay at the forefront of the latest thinking and practice. We are creative problem solvers. We are constantly evolving and help our people to do so through learning and development
During COVID-19 lockdowns, volunteers from our Men's Shed supported the Shed's members with check-in phone calls. We'd like to acknowledge their efforts in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of people in our community during this time.
In May we were thrilled to host a celebration event for all staff, as we were unable to have a Christmas event in 2020.
After more than a year of not being able to gather everyone together, it was a great opportunity to celebrate our achievements and for staff to re-connect in person. For many new staff who started during last year's lockdown, it was a chance to meet their colleagues face-to-face for the first time!
During the event, special guest speaker Vicki Ward MP, State Member for Eltham, acknowledged how tough the past year has been for all of us, and expressed her sincere gratitude for the way we have been able to pivot, innovate, and continue to provide care and support to people in our communities.
It was also lovely to hear positive stories from staff about how they've been able to help clients and support each other during challenging times. Given the extensive lockdowns during subsequent months, we feel very lucky that we were able to celebrate together when we did!
Earlier this year our staff participated in the People Matter Survey, which is offered annually to community health services by the Victorian Public Sector Commission.
The survey was a great opportunity for staff to provide feedback on our workplace and culture, and it has provided us with valuable information to help us continually improve our workplace culture and the services we provide. We were pleased to receive many positive responses from staff, particularly considering the challenges we have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even before the pandemic began, we understood the importance of effective Information Communications Technology (ICT) systems. As described in our Strategic Plan 2019 -2024, we identified that our ICT systems and processes needed to support staff to operate efficiently and effectively. Our knowledge is dependent on building quality data and ICT systems to enable effective decision making, measure our impact and achieve a sustainable financial position.
Last year the organisation was propelled into this long-term vision, with remote working, telehealth, increased information security requirements and our response to the pandemic as a health organisation, driving the need to innovate and adapt our ICT systems.
During this period, we significantly enhanced ICT by implementing:
In an effort to reduce our carbon footprint, we installed solar panels on the roof at healthAbility in Eltham in late 2020.
During 2020-2021 our Quality and Safety team’s key focus was supporting the health and safety of our staff and clients during the continuing COVID-19 health emergency.
We did this by implementing COVID-19 infection control training and preparation activities, and reduced the risk to staff and clients by supporting staff to work from home where practical. We also employed a dedicated OHS/COVID Manager to ensure our infection control and safety practices were of the highest standard, and to keep staff updated with accurate and timely information.
Alongside our COVID-19 prevention and preparation activities, we continued to foster a culture of safety across the organisation by aligning our emergency management responses, revamping our Occupational Health and Safety committee and providing professional development to all our Health and Safety representatives. We have ensured timely reporting and clinical review of all clinical, OHS and Hazard incidents are promptly reported and actioned.
In 2020 we commenced the Prompt project, which is working to improve our information, procedure and document management systems. Prompt will ultimately become our ‘one source of truth’ for operational and service delivery documents across the organisation. It will help staff to quickly find the accurate information they need so that we can continue to provide quality services in the safest way possible for our clients.
As well as supporting client safety, over the past year we have focused on collecting client feedback through a range of channels, including feedback forms and surveys. We also commenced development of our customer engagement framework which will assist us in collecting and responding to feedback. We are incredibly grateful for the feedback we receive, as it enables us to identify priority areas for improvement so that we can provide the best possible experience for everyone who visits and uses our services.
healthAbility as a health service provider has a number of standards that we need to meet to ensure safe and effective care for our clients. In the last 12 months we have been successfully assessed against the following standards.
2020 was the first time that healthAbility undertook the new NDIS Practice Standards Assessment. The assessor noted that:
The assessor also noted that we demonstrated the following strengths:
healthAbility was congratulated on the outcome of the assessment and for the good practice and participant outcomes reflected through the audit process.
We value the feedback that we receive and we have made improvements on how we capture feedback. Over the last 12 months 70 percent of the feedback provided has been positive, with our dental services receiving the most feedback from our clients.
We are pleased that the compliments we received told us:
Some of our complaints highlighted that we need to improve our communication and responsiveness and we are working towards ensuring that we improve our communication with clients and families.
Translation of this report is available in key languages upon request and interpreter services are available at our location or by phone.
We encourage the use of screen reader apps for translation also, such as Google Translate.
We aim to produce our information in plain English. However, if you need help reading or understanding this report, please contact us.
© 2021 healthAbility. All rights reserved.
43 Carrington Road, Box Hill, VIC 3128
917 Main Road, Eltham VIC 3095
Phone: 03 9430 9100
Email: contact@healthability.org.au
ABN 32 180 310 839
