Working Well - Gurriny Project

‘Working well' aims to develop evidence-informed, tailored workforce systems and processes to support sustained improvements in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled primary healthcare service provision with a demonstration project at Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service (Gurriny), Yarrabah, Queensland.

Active involvement of Gurriny staff in developing their own solutions will maximise benefits and embed new knowledge in practice and policy as the research progresses. The workforce development model will potentially be used by Gurriny to improve its current workforce by implementing and monitoring effective, acceptable and practical strategies and informing further routine collection of indicators to enable monitoring.

The Yarrabah community will benefit from a health workforce that is adaptable to changing health needs and service delivery environments; optimising access to health care; and continuing to build cultural safety and responsiveness. The main benefits will include a documented blueprint of conditions and strategies, and how they link to form a tailored workforce model.
‘Working Well' is embedded in a collaborative strengths-based model with engagement and translation at the heart of the methodology. The project will engage with additional Indigenous health services to ensure research relevance, rigorous and ethical practice, and impact.

The ‘Working well' research comprises three steps:

1. Systematic scoping review of the literature to identify Indigenous primary healthcare workforce models in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, their enabling conditions, strategies and impacts
2. Retrospective mapping of change in workforce characteristics against evidence-informed workforce management systems (2014-2017)
3. CQI sessions with staff and key stakeholders to interrogate what works well, what does not, and how improvements can be made. Grounded theory analysis will be used to develop a transferable workforce model.

The Lowitja Institute. (2018). Working well: Tailoring a workforce development model to deliver sustained improvements in community controlled healthcare. Retrieved from lowitja.org.au/working-well

Policy Brief: July 2019. Working Well: Tailoring a workforce development model to deliver sustained improvements in community-controlled health care. The story of Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service. Gurriny Yealamucka Health Service Aboriginal Corporation, The Lowitja Institute, CQUniversity.

Featured in Lowitja's September eBulletin and CIHER Twitter.