Improving ways of thinking and ways of doing (WoTWoD) Aboriginal and Cross Cultural Health in General Practice

We have developed a Toolkit and care partnership strategy – “Ways of Thinking and Ways of Doing” (WoTWoD)” to assist Australian general practices to provide culturally and clinically appropriate health care to Aboriginal people. Intervention practices will use WoTWoD for 12 months and we will then examine whether the WoTWoD improves cultural respect and delivery of culturally and clinically appropriate care to Aboriginal Australians. In brief, the Toolkit is a whole-of-practice clinical re-design process to embed cultural respect in general practice. It includes ten case-scenarios describing management of Aboriginal patients at general practice setting and each scenario is followed by a narrative about whether the patient was managed in a culturally and clinically appropriate manner. It describes both aspects of the patient management – proper and improper – providing an explanation and guidance to the general practice staff how the patient could have provided high quality health care (both clinically and culturally). The Toolkit also includes a “Cultural Respect Framework” and also explains the importance of it. The other components of the Toolkit includes a “Self-Assessment” template for the practice staff to use to assess what are being done at the practices to accommodate the needs of the Aboriginal patients and an “Action Plan” template for practice staff to use to address their shortcomings (if any). The other two components of the “Toolkit” include a list of resources and recommended readings that practice staff can utilize. For the intervention practice staff a 4-hour workshop will be organized to train them how the Toolkit should be used. The workshop will be face-to-face and presentation will be made by experts both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, but all expert in Aboriginal Health. After the workshop all the intervention practices will be visited by 1-2 trained Aboriginal Cultural Mentors who will assist practices to implement the Toolkit over the next 12 months. At each Primary Health Network (PHN) area a Local Care Partnership (LCP) will be formed which will include representative from the Close the Gap staff from the PHN, representative from the local Aboriginal communities and also the Aboriginal Cultural Mentor(s). The LCP and members from the research will be in regular touch with the practices to monitor adherence to the intervention by the practices.