Grant: Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant: Health Services and Policy Research

The inaugural Symposium on Patient Journey Modelling aims to bring together health care providers from a variety of disciplines in an innovative and highly interactive information exchange environment for the purposes of reviewing the latest healthcare transformation research, sharing experiences in health service redesign, development of future research funding opportunities and forming ongoing quality improvement partnerships. Specifically the symposium will highlight how patient journey modelling can play a significant role in the identification of health services improvements (including information systems such as electronic health records, reduced wait times, and improved patient safety) and assist in the development of new/enhanced evidence-based policies and guidelines. Both local and international experts will present their experiences using patient journey modelling and the impact that is has had on the quality of care they provide, patient safety, the efficiency of their workforce, and the increased return on investment from technology implementations at their sites. Case studies from mental health, emergency rooms, maternal care (remote aboriginal care and metropolitan midwifery care), neonatology, and chronic renal disease will be presented by a team of academic researchers and clinician partners. During the symposium, participants will have the opportunity to develop skills in patient journey modelling through hands on workshop experience. Facilitators will demonstrate and engage participants in small groups in the modelling process. Modelling cases might be a small portion internal to a ward such as admissions, or the analysis of patient hand-offs between community partners. Participants will be encouraged to discuss possible applications of the techniques to support their own strategic initiatives and to build partnerships and collaborative projects to investigate and improve the patient journeys at their institutions.