The Summer Foundation has developed a Collaborative Discharge Approach (CDA) to improve the pathway from hospital back to the community for people with a newly acquired disability and/or change in their circumstances.
Our aim is to increase outcomes for NDIS participants through improved hospital discharge timeframes.
Based on what we learnt through pilots in Barwon and Ballarat (funded by the William Buckland Foundation), the full CDA project has now been rolled out to the South West Sydney Local Health District, and at Austin and Alfred Health. Since early this year, 7 training sessions for 144 participants have been run in South West Sydney.
Among the positive outcomes have been:
- Hospital staff better equipped to write plans that meet NDIS requirements
- NDIS access request forms approved within 5 days
- Better collaboration with support coordinators leading to NDIS plans getting underway earlier
- NDIA planners and clinicians working more effectively together, meaning faster discharge for patients, and more appropriate supports for living well in the community