Abstract
Introduction: People with intellectual disability experience significantly poorer health and preventable premature mortality than the general community, with a median life expectancy of 54 years (Trollor et al, 2017).
It is increasingly being acknowledged that the health system contributes to health disparities, partly due to attitudes, values, skills and knowledge of health professionals and models of care. These are relevant for people with intellectual disability who experience increased potentially preventable hospitalizations and lower access to community and preventative healthcare (Weise et al, 2021).
The National Roadmap for Improving the Health of People with Intellectual Disability (the Roadmap) was launched in 2021, Australia. A comprehensive 10 year plan, it seeks to drive systemic change within health and is the culmination of consultations with a broad range of stakeholders, including people with intellectual disability, peak bodies, a range of health agencies and others. It provides an exemplar of best practice development of models of care that are person centred, multidisciplinary, disability-integrated and intersectional and aims to address serious health inequities
Reasons for a workshop: The Roadmap, built on national system wide governance and leadership, can serve as an exemplar of the way cross-organisational services and joint actions can be funded, coordinated, and regulated, and on how outcomes and benefits are assessed for the care recipient, care teams and the system. Examining the development of the Roadmap, as well as comprehensive recommendations, can also serve as model for other populations who experience health inequities.
Through workshop interactive format, participants will have opportunities to hear from and engage with key experts who contributed to the development of the Roadmap and who are instrumental in driving sector changes to address health inequities.
This workshop will be suitable for a range of participants including policy makers, health professionals and health agencies with interest in health reform and equity or in improving the health of people with intellectual disability. Discussion about how these approaches can be applied to other people who experience significant health inequities will be welcome.
Structure of the workshop (90 minutes)
The workshop will be structured in 3 parts: introductory presentations, including case study and person with lived experience, roundtable discussions, feedback and responses by panel. Notes will be taken for dissemination to participants. Facilitator is Dr Jacqueline Small.
Introduction presentations (total 40 mins) will include: person with lived experience, brief case study (Dr Alexis Berry), research evidence of health inequities (Professor Julian Trollor), roadmap development (Mr Simon Cottrell), role of clinical standards (Australian Commission Safety and Quality in Health Care), primary healthcare initiatives (Mr Brendan Goodger).
Roundtables and Discussion (total 40 mins)- facilitated roundtables to discuss key questions and issues arising from presentations and involving panel members.
Concluding comments
References
Trollor J, Srasuebkul P, Xu H and Howlett S (2017) Cause of death and potentially avoidable deaths in Australian adults with intellectual disability using retrospective linked data. BMJ Open 7: e013489.
Weise JC, Srasuebkul P and Trollor JT (2021) Potentially preventable hospitalisations of people with intellectual disability in NSW. Med J Aust 215(1):31-36.