The good news is that with a bit of space, time and well thought through process design, undertaking a customer journey mapping process isn’t unattainable for a not-for-profit organisation to deliver effectively. To help get you started, we’ve outlined a common customer journey mapping process that we have used successfully across a number of previous projects.

Moving from a position of mobilising general support for the concepts towards the uptake and implementation of social prescribing elements is the challenge. There are significant opportunities to enhance the uptake of social prescribing in local communities and health systems right across Australia, with PHNs having a particularly profound opportunity to lead the charge. 

In considering what ‘good’ looks like in the context of social prescribing, we should start with why it’s not already happening. It seems logical to focus on a person’s health and social needs and from the work we’ve done with consumers and health professionals, there is shared recognition of the importance and need for something like social prescribing. 

With the continued focus on social prescribing as a ‘high-value, low-cost’ way of improving the responsiveness of the health system, we thought it would be worthwhile to unpack some of what we learnt in that project to share with other PHNs commissioning social prescribing service models or linkage program providers. This blog is the first of three in a South Eastern NSW case study series: what is social prescribing?

Any provider of health and social services should regularly review their service models against the latest evidence, policy priorities and practice guidance. The following blog explores the inputs we use to inform service redesign and create "implementation ready" service models. Read more here.

Needs assessment is a term that you have most likely heard of if you work for a local government or council. However, what exactly is it, why should you consider conducting one and what is the best approach? 

The Buurtzorg Model has transformed community-based aged nursing in the Netherlands, at scale, to keep older adults healthy and out of hospital. But can the Buurtzorg Model be translated to the Australian context? Is it possible to reverse or better leverage the trend of an increasingly non-clinical in-home aged care workforce? How do we shift from delivering aged care services transactionally to relationally?

Market-led approaches to health and social services are considered to be a responsive, innovative and efficient mechanism in meeting the needs of consumers. At Beacon Strategies we were lucky enough to join one of our partner organisations for the journey.

One of our key projects during the second half of 2017 was to support a client in planning their expansion into Queensland. In this article, we describe the steps we undertook, what we found, and how a similar approach can help ensure organisations considering expansion to do so successfully.

We were engaged by Acacia Ridge Community Support Inc (ARCSI) to co-design a service model of community-based antenatal care coordination for the Acacia Ridge and nearby communities. A few weeks ago, we proudly presented the findings of this service design process at a workshop led by ARCSI and attended by a range of interested stakeholders.

Today's blog post is going to cover a piece of work we are currently doing in collaboration with Acacia Ridge Community Support Inc! For those not familiar with what 'service mapping' is, it is essentially a stocktake of available services in the local community to better understand what is available.

Midway through this year, we were engaged by Acacia Ridge Community Support Inc. to complete a community needs assessment and service design project focussing on the prenatal period as a key time to influence the trajectory of one's lifelong health and prosperity.

It's been a busy couple of months here at Beacon HQ but we thought it might be good to share a tale from our travels.