What began as a program to provide emergent support to Rockhampton Hospital Ophthalmology Service when they urgently required specialists to fill a growing community need has grown into a consistent high quality integrated service delivery model. Vanguard Health through its partnership with Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service, Rockhampton Hospital provides Ophthalmologists every week as part of a fully integrated service. The team of Ophthalmologists provide specialist services that would not be available in the community if it was not for the established model.
Service delivery includes outpatient appointments where often minor eye procedures are undertaken along with retinal and YAG laser procedures; intravitreal eye injections for patients with macular degeneration, diabetic macular oedema and retinal vein occlusions; paediatric outpatients and theatre and also adult cataract, pterygium and oculoplastic/oncology theatres.
Since the program commenced in 2014, we have treated over 20,000 patients from multiple communities within Central Queensland HHS’s catchment. Having diversity with multiple subspecialty Ophthalmologists in our team, the program offers a holistic approach to patients needing to see an Ophthalmologist and also helps alleviate the need for travel to a tertiary centre. One case in particular had one of our participating ocular oncology specialists consulting an unwell cancer patient locally saving multiple trips to Brisbane for sub-specialist opinion and treatment.
The Rockhampton Ophthalmology program has provided over 20,000 occasions of service with an Ophthalmologist and in the financial year 2023-2024 alone, the program has expanded to meet demand and has provided approximately 3,500 occasions of service. By bringing specialist Ophthalmologists directly to patients, the program negated the need for unnecessary travel, enhancing access to care and reducing the time and financial burden on individuals and their families.
This service provides world class ophthalmology to the local community and removes the need for patients to travel with the Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme (PTSS) to Brisbane to receive their care saving thousands of dollars per patient and making this service model sustainable financially by redirecting this “dead” travel funding to an actual local medical service and outcome for an Australian living in regional Australia.
Vanguard Health's innovative model of care continues to help bridge the gap in healthcare access and improve outcomes for rural Australian’s. This model, and a funded expansion of it into other communities and medical specialties, is a clear opportunity for the Albanese Government to demonstrate its clear intent support regional and remote Australians with high quality, patient focused care closer to home, ultimately contributing to better health equity no matter where you live.
