#NavigatingHealth: Simplifying Complexity – Connecting Changemakers

Linny Phuong, Founder & Board Director of the Water Well Project; Heather REnton Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Syndromes Without a Name and PhD student Alice Kim are in discussion
Linny Phuong - Water Well Project, Heather Renton - Syndromes Without a Name and PhD student Alice Kim

“Right patient, right care, right time, right cost”. Sounds simple?  Unfortunately not. The lived-reality for patients is that health systems are complex to navigate at a time when they most need support.  We talk about patient-centred care but we don’t have patient-centred systems.

The #NavigatingHealth network was formed to address the complex challenges consumers face in the healthcare system. We bring together stakeholders from different sectors, including consumers, health professionals, and community organizations, to foster collaboration, innovation, and advocacy for improved health services and policies. Our collective focus is to coalesce the work across diseases, disabilities and aged care to silo-bust!

Cue “Simplifying Complexity”. A collaborative, multidisicplinary forum run by the Nossal Institute for Global Health in April 2024 with patients, not-for-profit organisations, professionals, policy makers and academics bringing expertise into the room to start to problem solve at scale the challenges that face everyone in navigating “complex, adapative, systems”.

Understanding “why this matters”  is essential to making progress in creating patient-centred healthcare systems.

Tim Cooper’s wife Nicole lived with metastatic bowel cancer and was an advocate for change. Tim opened the forum with a fireside chat with Professor Frederic Hollande, sharing their journey navigating a health system, the challenges encountered & what he hopes to see change in.

Colleagues from across the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences shared their expertise and experience in a series of mini-lectures  about  the component parts that underpin our ability to build patient-centred systems approaches; policy, culture, incentives, evaluation, economics, equity, workforce to name but a few.

Changemakers worked together in collaborative workshops as part of a “whole of life approach” from pregnancy and childbirth through to dementia and end-of-life care focused on Simplifying Complexity across a life course.

Every change starts with a conversation and the energetic vibe  started a palpable “call-to-action” galvanising the expertise addressing the silos across health.

Learn more about #NavigatingHealth and find the next event

Siân Slade is an Enterprise Fellow (Honorary) and PhD Candidate based at the Nossal Institute for Global Health. Siân is the project lead for #Navigating Health.

More Information

Siân Slade

slade.s@unimelb.edu.au