Darling Downs residents suffering from chronic disease will be the first to trial a new chronic care program that aims to improve the quality of life and reduce the rate of unplanned hospital admissions for patients with heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and other long-term chronic illnesses.

The LINCS ( Linking Chronic Disease Services ) program, the first of its kind in Australia, was launched today by Deputy Premier and Minister for Health Paul Lucas.

The Queensland Health funded initiative is a partnership between BlueCare, GP Connections ( Toowoomba and Darling Downs Division of General Practice ), RHealth ( South East Queensland Rural Division of General Practice ) and Queensland Health.

$875,000 has been provided by Queensland Health over two years from the Queensland Strategy for Chronic Disease 2005-2015 and is distributed through participating partners including RHealth, GP Connections and Bluecare, with an estimated 100 patients to participate in the early part of the trial.

Mr Lucas said the program’s aim was to improve quality of life and reduce the need for hospital based care for patients suffering from chronic disease.

“The Queensland Government is committed to reducing rates of chronic disease by a third by 2020 and initiatives such as this will go lengths in helping to achieve this,” Mr Lucas said.

“This initiative has been recognised as an example of the future of chronic disease management and its services will contribute to managing growing demand for, and supply of, health services in the area.

Mr Lucas said patients living with a long term chronic condition would be allocated a Care Coordinator who would complete a comprehensive assessment and care plan in consultation with the patient’s GP.

The Care Coordinator could be the patient’s practice nurse, a nurse from a non-government organisation such as BlueCare, or a community health nurse ( Queensland Health ) – depending on the needs of the patient.

The care plan, in most cases, will enable access to Medicare subsidised allied health visits through registered service providers.

The Care Coordinator will be the central point of contact for all service providers and coordinate all visits, aided by an online Directory of participating Service Providers. Currently there are more than 80 private, government and non-government providers registered for the program across areas including physiotherapy, psychology, exercise psychology, speech pathology and pharmacy.

The LINCS Program will be supported by a website - www.lincsdd.org.au.

“LINCS have developed an electronic tool which enables Care Coordinators to collect assessment information which will automatically build a Care Plan in a format acceptable to Medicare,” Mr Lucas said.

“This tool also allows the automatic creation of a complete Ongoing Needs Identification ( ONI ), the standard tool used within Queensland’s Home and Community Care ( HACC ) services.

“The Queensland Government remains committed to tackling the burden of chronic disease on all fronts and this is an innovative approach that I am pleased to see being pioneered in a regional community,” he said.

Ends.

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Source: PressZoom