POAC ACUTE CARE SERVICES
Primary Options for Acute Care (POAC is a service providing healthcare professionals access to investigations, care, or treatment for their patient, where the patient can be safely managed in the community.
The POAC care co-ordination service facilitates access to existing infrastructure and resources in the community to provide a range of services that prevents an acute hospital attendance or shortens the length of hospital stay for patients who do attend or are admitted.
The aim of the POAC service is to deliver timely, flexible and coordinated care, meeting the healthcare needs of individual patients in a community setting.
- Enable primary care providers to maximise the management of patients in the community, within the constraints of the funding rules
- Create opportunities to improve the primary-secondary interface
- Develop and implement new care pathways to reduce acute demand
- Link with other community services that support the overall purpose
- Reduce number of bed days with an early discharge service
- Support a framework that provides an integrated approach to the patient care, improving the patient experience and delivering healthcare services that are timely and convenient
- Facilitate increased capacity and capability for primary healthcare to provide safe acute care in the community, within the constraints of the funding rules