Connected Care

The Connected Care service works with individuals to determine their unique support needs, and aims to improve people’s ability to self-manage their conditions and circumstances. Connected Care is provided by team of experienced health workers who see people in the community.

The Connected Care team can help with:

• Assistance and education to manage your health
• Talking about your needs with people you identify as appropriate for example:
  • You and your family or carer
  • Other health providers including your GP and hospital
  • Other support services
• Linking you with appropriate services
• Coordinating services and appointments
• Helping with communication between multiple agencies and professionals

We aim to ensure you are receiving the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Conditions seen

Barwon Health offers a Connected Care service for people who are living with:

• Chronic illness
• Issues with wellbeing, confidence, self-esteem, social, spiritual and emotional health
• Complex care needs

This might include people who have:

• complex medical diagnoses
• decreased functional ability
• problems with self-management, including managing medications
• complex psychosocial needs including but not limited to psychological co-morbidity, fragile support systems, carer stress, social isolation, homelessness or at risk of homelessness or living in insecure housing, mental health issues and not eligible for specialist mental health, financial insecurity, family violence.

Conditions not seen

Barwon Health Connected Care does not accept referrals for clients:

• who are not frequent ED attenders, or at imminent risk of unplanned admission
• with a primary diagnosis of Mental Health and/or substance use (please refer via Mental Health triage. Call on 1300 094 187)
• who have primary conditions which require the support of specialist teams
• without medical complexity

How do I access this service

To be seen in this service you need a referral. The referral can be from your GP, a specialist doctor, your Barwon Health doctor or from a community-based healthcare provider.

This service also accepts self-referrals from patients and parents/carers. To self-refer, telephone the team.

Wait time

All requests for specialist clinic appointments are scheduled according to the patient’s clinical need. Clinicians assess whether an appointment is urgent or routine, based on information provided in the referral.

Barwon Health aims to see all ‘urgent’ referrals within 30 days. Our wait times for patients who are categorised as ‘routine’ are more variable, depending on the demand for our services.

The projected wait time listed below are only estimated timeframes for routine (non-urgent) patients.