Service Referral Mapping Project

Description
Brain injury rehabilitation is often hampered by the fragmented nature of service systems and the availability and accessibility of that service system. Policy and development improvements in this area are hampered by a clear knowledge of referral patterns to and from services and how these vary over time and for different individuals.

A quality project is being conducted to explore these patterns within the context of service delivery at ABIOS since its inception.

Rationale
There is currently little evidence to guide policy and service development initiatives in brain injury rehabilitation. Further to this, service referral aspects often receive little attention in quality improvement despite being a key feature of the Australian Council of Healthcare Standards guidelines. In the context of the changing service landscape with the introduction of the NDIS and the NIIS, these patterns will change and become more important.

Participants
All clients of the Acquired Brain Injury Outreach Service since inception.

Key Features and Anticipated Outcomes
This study emerged from quality improvement reviews and an identified need to better understand referral patterns.

The aim of the study is to explore the service referral patterns of a community rehabilitation service for people with acquired brain injury to inform:
a) Quality improvement at a service level
b) Policy and service development more broadly

Funding
This project is internally funded by ABIOS.

Research / Evaluation Strategies
Chart/database review of referrals to and from the Acquired Brain Injury Outreach Service since its inception.

Descriptive analysis of referral patterns over time and across demographic variables.

Publications
There are no publications to date for this research.