In the outback, Australian Aboriginals have an unfortunate set of statistics alongside their experiences. Increased vulnerability and risk of diabetes, respiratory illness, heart disease, and kidney disease are only the tip of the iceberg.
Sadly, many healthcare services are unable to make significant inroads into reducing these increased risks. Governments have tried—and failed—to turn the tide and improve health outcomes for Aboriginal Australians.
A small part of the reason for this gap isn’t because we don’t know how to treat these chronic conditions. Rather, it’s because of the way we provide the services.
The differences in the way we provide those services versus the way these communities expect to receive them are at constant odds. We set up healthcare services in the ways we would expect to receive them for ourselves. Unfortunately, this means that if there is a different expectation—as there is within Aboriginal communities—the patient experiences will be terrible.
Our lack of flexibility in the delivery of these services, and our unfortunate expectations that the patients need to jump through our hoops in order to get the treatment they need, has significant impacts on the experiences of these patients. Diversity, culture, and flexibility always need to be included in any transformation effort.
There is no need to us to create rigid services, especially when the world is shrinking, communities are becoming closer, and access to technology grows.
So how can we improve these experiences? It’s easier than you might think…
To better understand how to build diversity and flexibility into your services and to improve patient experiences, reach out to us. We can help you map out an improvement strategy that targets your problems directly and generates the best experiences for your patients, clients, partners, and staff.
