Project Structure

The University Dept Of Rural Health, Tasmania (UDRH) is overseeing the projects implementation with input from the Steering Committee and a Reference Group.

There is a state-wide project manager,, a project assistant, a bi-cultural worker and 3 pilot site managers. The role of the bi-cultural worker, based in Glenorchy, will be to address the specific needs of the polish community around self-management.

The pilot site managers are locally based in each pilot site and it is their job to:

• provide, and facilitate access to chronic disease self-management education and training for clients, health professionals, carers and the wider community;
• foster the formation of local chronic disease healthcare network groups and support their work of bringing about a culture of sharing, communication and support linking all levels of the health care environment.

EVALUATION:

Evaluation of all aspects of the project is ongoing over the life of the project. This will occur on two levels:

• Local Evaluation: the local evaluator is Dr Peter Orpin from UDRH, and
• National Evaluation: PricewaterhouseCoopers was announced as the National Evaluator for the eight Sharing Health Care Initiative projects in February 2002. Working with PricewaterhouseCoopers on the National Evaluation is the Australian Centre for Effective Health Care and the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Sydney at Westmead.