RACP recognised in new Productivity Commission report

The Productivity Commission recently released Shifting the Dial: 5 year Productivity Review, the first in a regular series of inquiries into productivity, undertaken every five years. The Review includes a chapter that contains comments and recommendations on health policy relating to areas of high priority to the RACP including integrated care, reducing low value care, and better use of e-health and telehealth. The Review is also accompanied by 16 Supporting Papers, three of which relate to health.

Key publications and initiatives of the RACP were recognised and noted by the Productivity Commission in its Supporting Paper No. 5 on Integrated Care: 

• The paper argues that end of life care is one of the dimensions of patient centred care and cites an RACP publication, Improving Care at the End of Life: Our Roles and Responsibilities, as an example of where this is recognised.
• The RACP’s Evolve initiative is cited as one example of how the medical profession has come to recognise and promote the need to identify and reduce low value clinical practices.
• On how to transition towards a better integrated healthcare system, the paper cites the RACP’s statements as capturing the ‘essential steps’ for moving towards integrated care.

The inclusion of the ​RACP’s positions on these issues highlights the success of our work to date on these particular matters and for the ​RACP’s voice overall such that our positions and views are being cited.