Our blog
We believe in sharing the knowledge and learnings we capture through our work with people and organisations across the health and social services sectors.
Our blog consists of thoughtful and practical content and insight across a range of topic areas that aims to better enable people and organisations to plan, design, implement and evaluate their work.
Lived experience involvement at a project governance level: Implications for Primary Health Networks (PHNs) into the future
We genuinely believe that meaningful participation at a project governance level leads to better project outcomes and promotes ownership of the project. Stakeholders who are involved in project governance groups have the opportunity to provide feedback on the overall approach for the project, ensure that...
Timing is everything: Primary Health Networks (PHNs) and program evaluation
Central to being an effective commissioner of health services is the ability to use insight to make better investment decisions. Given that the Beacon Strategies team has been involved in a number of evaluation and program reviews in the PHN environment we think it is timely to share a few tips in relation to commissioning effective evaluations and program reviews.
Co-commissioning health services: the (not so) new frontier for PHNs
As the 31 PHNs across Australia continue improve their capability and effectiveness in health service commissioning, the current policy setting will require PHNs to apply their commissioning frameworks in a more integrated and collaborative way via co-commissioning.
Closing the loop - maintaining confidence in stakeholder engagement for PHNs
Given the nature of their role, Primary Health Networks (PHNs) are constantly required to engage effectively with a diverse range of stakeholders. Engagement underpins health needs assessments, regional planning activities, service co-design and program reviews/evaluation to name just a few.
Lessons from evaluating a PHN-funded low intensity mental-health service
This evaluation explored how well the program had engaged people from CALD backgrounds, if it had led to improvements in mental health and wellbeing, and how the program ‘fits’ within the region’s stepped care model
Using program evaluation to strengthen service delivery: a case example of Open Minds CHIME program
If you are an organisation seeking to demonstrate your impact, enhance service delivery and better position yourself for future investment, do not go past two critical pieces to the puzzle - monitoring and evaluation. Read a case example of what we did, what we found and what is next for one of our partner organisations.
Using patient experience to drive positive health reform
Patient experience is increasingly recognised as one of the three ‘pillars of quality in healthcare’ alongside clinical effectiveness and patient safety. The health care sector is heavily regulated, however delivering a compliant service does not necessarily translate to a good service experience for the consumer. An increasingly common strategy used by organisations to measure patient experience is to undertake patient journey mapping.
Public participation 101
Quite often structured engagement activities are seen as nice-to-have additions to an organisation’s pre-existing repertoire. However in the health and social services sector, specifically in the non-profit arena, the benefits that genuine stakeholder engagement can have on mitigating the negative effects of market competition, public cynicism and perceived transparency are profound.
Training to enable better planning, design, implementation and evaluation of social programs
We’ve recently developed a series of short, low-cost and high-value workshops to support people working in the health and social services sector to better plan, design, implement and evaluate programs.