Department to host Victorian Clinical Placements Summit

29 April 2011

The Department of Health is pleased to host the inaugural Victorian Clinical Placements Summit in May this year.

Professional-entry clinical placements play an important role in preparing the next generation of health professionals for their roles in the workforce.

They are critical in exposing health students to health service environments to facilitate the development of the skills and knowledge necessary for clinical practice.

However, an increase in health students across all disciplines is placing significant pressure on health services to meet the associated demand to clinically educate our future workforce.

Video transcript

Nick Bush
I think some of the integrations between universities and the health services needs improvement and I think the Clinical Placement Network in an area where we are seeing universities and public hospitals coming to the table for sometimes, the first time to talk about where students can be placed.

Louise McKinlay
What the CPNs will do is put some focus on the subject matter, which perhaps hasn’t been in play before.

Prof Meg Morris
The biggest issues are putting in a strategy, setting up good systems, but also getting the information that we need for decision-making.

Leone English
The biggest issue with clinical placements in Victoria and across the country in capacity. Once of the aims of the Clinical Placement Network is to find some untapped capacity out there.

Prof Meg Morris
We also need information and so we are currently setting up databases and collecting information on where and how many placements we have in each location. From that process of data collection, we can then work out where there is availability of future placements and where there is capacity in the system for future growth.

Louise McKinlay
I think the biggest issue is consistency and quality. So whether that’s the quality of the placement experience itself or the clinical teacher.

Leone English
If we are really wanting to ensure that we are getting great graduate outcomes, we really need to look to ensure they have quality placement experiences.

Nick Bush
If we can improve our clinical placement as well as the accommodation of where people are residing, I think the opportunities for student to come and be educated will then progress through to being our workforce of the future will be enhanced and that why we are so focussed on the clinical placement network.

Leone English
It’s really the first step towards being able to embrace other areas that haven’t traditionally been part of placement networks.

Nick Bush - That’s where the improvements I think will be made, is that greater integration between what the universities are teaching and what the health services are delivering and I think they can improve practice.

To provide a forum for this issue and to discuss new initiatives and innovations, the department will host the Victorian Clinical Placements Summit from 26 to 27 May 2011.

Dan Jefferson, the Department of Health’s Manager of Sector Workforce Planning, said the summit aims to bring together people from health services, education providers and government.

“The Summit will discuss what can be done in the areas of partnerships, quality, innovation, governance and planning to build Victoria’s capacity to deliver high-quality clinical placements,” Mr Jefferson said.

It will also formally launch Victoria’s Clinical Placement Networks and the Victorian Clinical Placements Council which are major steps forward in clinical placement coordination.

Registrations for the Summit have now closed, however, there will be a live stream of the event and short videos of keynote presentations available for viewing. The live stream can be accessed from the Summit website.

Further information

For more information about the Summit, please visit the department’s Victorian Clinical Placements Summit website or contact Sharna Smith on (03) 9096 7223.