Victorian Public Healthcare Awards finalists

Nurse Practitioners redesigning heart failure care in Victoria

Austin Health

Heart failure is a terminal illness, with two-thirds of patients dying within five years of diagnosis, and one in four readmitted to hospital within 30 days of discharge. Austin Health developed a Heart Failure Nurse Practitioner model delivering specialist care beyond hospital walls across metropolitan and regional Victoria through GP, outpatient, and virtual regional clinics.

The model cut 30-day readmissions to under 5%, versus an expected 25%. Patients reported better quality of life, more confidence managing their condition, and improved access to care. It also strengthened collaboration across services, kept care closer to home, and saved lives.

Musculoskeletal Wellness Program

Northern Health

The Musculoskeletal Wellness Program is an innovative, scalable and person-centred model of care that improves access, outcomes and system efficiency. By integrating community-based care with perioperative support, embedding co-design and leveraging digital innovation, the model demonstrates excellence in delivering high-value healthcare for diverse populations.

Geriatric Assessment in the Emergency Department (GAED), creates better pathways to home care

South West Healthcare

South West Healthcare’s GAED program redesigns care for our vulnerable older population, leading regional geriatric care. By combining clear pathways, multidisciplinary teamwork, strong community partnerships and real-time data, the GAED delivers demonstrably better health and wellbeing outcomes for individual patients and their carers, stronger cross-system performance and a healthier ageing population across the region that brings the spirit of ‘right care, right place, right time’ to life in a community of regional Victoria.

Hybrid Menu Model - supporting patient food choice for sustainable healthcare

Alfred Health

Alfred Care Group aimed to improve the environmental impact of food services, whilst enhancing patient outcomes. They sought to reduce reliance on resource-intensive intervention associated with malnutrition, resulting in less environmental impact.

A key component was co-designing a hybrid meal ordering system to meet diverse patient needs and preferences. Developed with consumers and multi-disciplinary staff, the system combines patient hand-held devices with face-to-face ordering supported by menu monitors. This initiative demonstrates how patient co-design helps leads to improved patient health outcomes while contributing to a sustainable and resilient health system.

Reducing food waste

St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne

Traditionally, all unopened packaged items returned on patient meal trays were discarded to landfill. St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne (SVHM) identified that approximately 1,150 non-perishable items were returned daily, with 36% identified as suitable for recovery.

SVHM developed a way to reduce waste by removing high-waste default menu items, reusing shelf-stable packaged food items and donating shelf-stable packaged food items to charities. SVHM combined this with a safe, evidence-based reuse system integrated into existing workflows, ensuring no disruption to staff processes or patient care.

Reducing food waste at the RMH

The Royal Melbourne Hospital

The Food Service Sustainability project focused on two areas that contribute to preventable food and packaging waste and associated costs at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

The primary change used patient feedback about food preferences to inform a sustainability initiative to reduce items on default meals. The secondary change diverted the disposal of unopened shelf-stable fluids that were not consumed by patients, by adhering to safe infection control when reintroducing it into the supply. The project has resulted in estimated annual reductions of 52.5 tonnes of food and packaging waste, 110 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

HemoScreen Trial

Forensicare

Consumers prescribed clozapine in a high-secure hospital setting experienced distress, trauma and non-compliance because of frequent invasive venous blood testing. This created barriers to starting and maintaining essential treatment, increased restrictive interventions, and led to costly, high-risk hospital transfers for pathology collection.

Forensicare introduced the HemoScreen device to provide a less invasive finger-prick alternative and improve compliance for consumers receiving clozapine treatment. The pilot trialled Australia’s first use of capillary point-of-care full blood examination testing in a forensic mental health setting, combining rapid onsite diagnostics, consumer choice, lived experience feedback and collaborative evaluation to improve clozapine compliance and reduce restrictive practices.

Brimbank Melton Children's Health and Wellbeing Local

IPC Health

In Brimbank and Melton, children 0-11 from refugee, Aboriginal and culturally diverse communities with developmental and mental health needs faced hard-to-access, fragmented services. The Children’s Local redesigned a free, multidisciplinary, no-wrong-door community co-designed service, combining mental health, developmental, family and practically integrated supports.

Staged implementation combining 50 community voices, tri-agency governance and embedded evaluation built culturally responsive accessible supports for underserviced families. Since December 2022, the Children’s Local has supported more than 900 children and families, achieving 75% clinically meaningful functional improvement on family-defined goals and an 85% reduction in waiting times.

Adult Community Mental Health Services

Northern Health

Severe mental illness is a chronic, relapsing–remitting condition, contrasting with a model focused on acute, episodic care followed by discharge to GPs. This creates a cycle of exit and re-entry, limiting consolidation of gains during stability. Adult Community Mental Health services provide outcomes by keeping consumers well, preventing relapse and using an integrated approach.

An outpatient stream was implemented to stay connected with those needing long-term care, identifying early relapse signs and enabling timely transition to more intensive community treatment. This model improves consumer outcomes and experience, reduces hospital demand, and delivers more person-centred care with minimal redistribution of resources.

Boollam Boollam: a truly unique place to live

Monash Health

Small and ageing, Monash Health residential aged care facilities were no longer fit for purpose and could not meet the complex and evolving needs of residents, negatively impacting care delivery, experience, and quality of life. To address this, a state-of-the-art facility was designed and built and supported with redesigned, evidence-based, person-centred models of care.

A multidisciplinary team used a co-designed approach, challenging traditional practices to deliver an integrated model supported by innovative environmental and care design. The result is Boollam Boollam Aged Care Centre – a high-quality, contemporary and truly unique environment that enhances care, dignity, and wellbeing for residents.

Bringing End-of-Life Care Home: Improving access to specialist palliative care for aged care residents

Monash Health

Deteriorating aged care residents lack specialist palliative care access, driving distressing and avoidable emergency department presentations. This heavily burdens Victorian public hospitals while compromising comfort and dignity of older citizens.

Monash Health embedded a specialist Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Consultant directly within hospital Residential In-Reach teams to deliver rapid, integrated end-of-life care. Guided by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research the project collapsed multi-step on-referral processes into a single point of contact delivering parallel palliative and geriatric care. Monash reviewed 63% of cases within 24 hours, enabling 93% of residents to pass away in their preferred facility location.

BeWell - Empowering older adults through choice, purpose and connection

Western Health

Patients in the Bed Based Transitional Care Program spent prolonged periods inactive and bored, increasing risk of physical, cognitive and psychological decline. No structured, engaging activity program existed to support diverse patient needs.

The solution was the co-designed BeWell program promoting meaningful activity and social engagement. Using existing resources, BeWell delivered individual and group activities co-designed with patients, carers and the multi-disciplinary team, with ongoing feedback shaping a culturally responsive and flexible model. The program achieved 90% participation, increased time out of bed by 12%, improved independence and patient experience, with no increase in adverse events.

Patient Management Team Improved Model of Care

Ambulance Victoria

Vulnerable patients with unmet needs defaulted to 000 as their primary healthcare access point, with high-volume presenters increasing 60% over five years and straining emergency resources. Ambulance Victoria's Patient Management Team (PMT) was created to break this cycle through proactive, co-designed management plans built with patients and care teams.

Australia's first ambulance service-based model of its kind, the PMT launched a new model of care in 2025 with three specialist streams delivering whole-of-system coordination to patients that other services couldn't reach. The outcome: a 60% reduction in presentations, 87.4% reduction in Code 1 responses, and 30 ambulances returned to the community daily.

Outcomes for Impact

Northern Health

Healthcare systems face rising demand and costs without corresponding improvements in outcomes, with care fragmented and focused on activity over value. There's limited visibility of the outcomes that matter most, alongside growing workforce pressure and inefficiency. Outcomes for Impact (OFI) was developed as a strategy to shift care from volume to value by measuring, using and acting on outcomes that matter.

OFI applies a standardised, scalable methodology integrating lived experience, outcomes data, digital care pathways and workforce capability. Implemented across 21 pathways and more than 4,500 patients, OFI has improved outcomes, experience and efficiency, demonstrating a sustainable and replicable model for value-based healthcare.

Paediatric Tonsillectomy Digital Care Pathway

Northern Health

Children undergoing tonsillectomy at Northern Health experienced high rates of avoidable Emergency Department presentations and readmissions following surgery. Families reported feeling underprepared and anxious managing recovery at home, with inconsistent access to timely, clear post-operative support.

An innovative digitally enabled virtual care model was co-created and implemented to support families proactively and continuously before and after surgery - improving self-management, redirecting care away from in person resources and reducing unnecessary hospital use. The model of care has reduced avoidable hospital presentations, significantly increased parent confidence and activation, and improved recovery outcomes while optimising existing workforce capacity and reducing low value
tasks.

Trauma‑informed multidisciplinary model of care at Tarrengower Prison

Dhelkaya Health

Women in custodial settings experience profound inequities in maternity care, driven by trauma, complex health and social needs, and fragmented service systems. These factors contribute to poor maternal and infant outcomes, including high rates of infant removal. In response, a trauma‑informed, multidisciplinary model of care was implemented by Dhelkaya Health at Tarrengower Prison to deliver early, continuous, and coordinated maternity support, with a strong focus on strengthening maternal–infant attachment.

This approach achieved outstanding outcomes, including 100% safe births, zero infant removals, and significant improvements in maternal health, engagement, and overall wellbeing.

Equitable virtual care for women across Victoria

Each

Women across Victoria experience significant barriers to timely, affordable and culturally safe women’s health care, leading to delayed diagnosis, fragmented pathways and inequitable health outcomes.

A free, statewide virtual women’s health clinic was established delivering coordinated, multidisciplinary care regardless of location, cost or circumstance. The clinic uses a GP and nurse-led, specialist-informed telehealth model integrating women’s health GPs, nursing, allied health and culturally safe support, underpinned by robust clinical governance and coordinated care pathways. This has resulted in high-quality, safe and evidence-based care delivered at scale, improving access, enabling earlier intervention, strengthening continuity of care and driving more equitable health outcomes for women across Victoria.

Multidisciplinary Women's Reproductive Health Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) Statewide Service

Monash Health

One in eight women live with PMOS, yet face delayed diagnoses, dismissed concerns, and fragmented siloed healthcare that fails to address the condition's full burden. No dedicated, integrated public service existed to meet their needs. In response, Monash Health established Australia's only Multidisciplinary Statewide PMOS Clinic and recently expanded it with the vision of an integrated "one-stop-shop" adding gynaecology, dermatology, general practice, and weight management services.

The expansion was driven by consumer feedback, clinical audit data, and referral demand analysis, and is delivered by a team with specific PMOS expertise. It was co-designed with women with lived experience and directly translates the 2023 International PMOS Guideline.

Facilitating attendance at specialist appointments

Alfred Health

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients experienced higher rates of missed specialist appointments, limiting access to care and contributing to poorer health outcomes. These disparities were driven by systemic barriers,
cultural factors, and challenges including transport, digital access, and mistrust.

The project aimed to reduce missed appointments through culturally responsive, proactive engagement led by Aboriginal Hospital Liaison Officers (AHLO) and Clinic Coordinators. Using a data-informed approach, it integrated Aboriginal governance, improved data systems, strengthened cultural safety, and introduced pre-clinic calls. Failure-to-attend rates reduced from 24.2% to 16.7%, with 0% non-attendance among patients receiving AHLO support, improving trust, experience and access.

Lotjpa Yapaneyepuk: talk together about cancer trials

Border Medical Oncology Research Unit

GV Health

Rumbalara Aboriginal Co-Operative Ltd

Cancer clinical trial access is not equitable, despite cancer being the leading cause of death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Clinical trial access is key to helping people live longer, healthier lives, and requires community-based solutions.

Border Medical Oncology Research Unit in collaboration with Rumbalara Aboriginal Co-Operative Ltd and Goulburn Valley Health supported a community-led co-design process to develop strengths-based responses to improve clinical trial access and address systemic barriers. They used Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research methods grounded in Aboriginal leadership, cultural authority and governance, and genuine power-sharing.

Lotjpa Yapaneyepuk created culturally safe, nationally relevant resources that strengthen equity and cancer trials access for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Healthy Lifestyles Program

Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative

The Healthy Lifestyles Program, delivered by Gippsland and East Gippsland Aboriginal Cooperative on Gunaikurnai Country, is a preventative, strengths-based, Aboriginal led initiative that addresses chronic disease, mental health and wellbeing by tackling the real barriers faced by community.

Grounded in self-determination, cultural safety and community priorities, the program demonstrated positive impacts on Aboriginal health and wellbeing by addressing risk factors for chronic disease early and holistically. Community members who previously faced barriers to participating in physical activity were now engaging regularly in movement, exercise, and preventative health activities.

Pride in Practice: Advancing Regional Gender-Affirming Care

Bendigo Community Health Services

Trans and gender diverse people across the Loddon Mallee region faced limited access to safe, inclusive and timely gender-affirming healthcare. Many experienced long wait times, unsafe healthcare interactions, and the burden of travelling to metropolitan services. Bendigo Community Health Services established a local Trans and Gender Clinic to provide affirming, accessible and person-centred care closer to home.

The clinic used community-informed design, low-barrier referral pathways, and an innovative nurse-supported GP model. The initiative supported more equitable access to healthcare for trans and gender diverse people by reducing barriers to care, improving continuity of care, and strengthening trust in local health services.

Reducing healthcare barriers for people with disability

Monash Health

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities often cannot access routine healthcare such as blood tests, vaccinations and medical imaging because standard healthcare environments do not meet their needs. This contributes to delayed diagnosis, missed preventative care and poorer health outcomes.

Monash Health developed the Disability Healthcare Access Service (DHAS), a community-based, nurse-led procedural support service for people with disability. DHAS implemented a tiered model combining individualised planning, adapted communication and procedural support from behavioural strategies through to sedation. DHAS achieved a 98% procedure completion rate, improved access to preventative healthcare and is now being expanded across other health services.

Immigrant Health Service - Integrated models of care for refugee and migrant children

The Royal Children's Hospital

Refugee and migrant children in Victoria face compounding disadvantages, including delayed vaccinations, long waits for disability and NDIS services, and avoidable hospital admissions when serious conditions go uncoordinated before arrival.

The Royal Children’s Hospital Immigrant Health Service addressed these systemic gaps by embedding specialist immunisation nursing into clinics, establishing Victoria’s first joint immigrant health–paediatric rehabilitation clinic, and creating a proactive offshore health alert system. Working within a multidisciplinary team and partnerships across agencies, the service delivered integrated, anticipatory care.

Vaccination overdue rates halved, coordinated disability assessment improved access, and only 15 of 158 high‑risk children required hospital admission.

Proactive behaviour support and staff wellbeing in acute spinal care

Austin Health

Occupational violence and aggression were high in Austin Health’s spinal injury inpatient ward, contributing to staff stress and low job satisfaction. In response, they introduced a psychology-led positive behaviour support model, codesigned with staff, patients and families, alongside staff wellbeing initiatives.

The model used proactive aggression management, specialist training, clinical pathways, and support from an embedded clinical neuropsychologist and nursing-led joy at work programs. The result was outstanding for the team and their patients, with a decrease in aggressive incidents, less code greys and staff reporting less burnout and more joy and support at work.

From Burnout to Belonging: Redesigning Early-Career Physiotherapy

Eastern Health

Eastern Health identified significant burnout, low satisfaction, high turnover and poor retention among early-career physiotherapists within its rotational program, threatening long-term workforce sustainability. In response, the Physiotherapy Department undertook a five-year co-designed redesign using quality improvement methods, structured transition-to-practice pathways, workforce monitoring and strengthened governance to improve wellbeing, psychological safety and professional development.

By 2025, satisfaction increased from 54% to 100%, turnover reduced from 41% to 4%, average tenure increased from 14 to 26 months, and internal progression rose from 24% to 92%, demonstrating a sustainable workforce model centred on belonging, development and retention.

Strengthening workforce culture through inclusion and lived experience

Your Community Health

People with lived experience of marginalisation often experience barriers to employment and workplaces where they do not feel included, culturally safe or psychologically safe. These barriers contribute to poorer workforce participation, retention and wellbeing across health services.

Through strong strategic intent and an intentional whole-of-organisation culture transformation, Your Community Health (YCH) embedded inclusion, lived experience and cultural safety across governance, leadership, planning and workforce systems. Using data-informed initiatives, policies, training, co-design and lived experience leadership, YourCH created innovative workforce approaches that strengthened safety, belonging and workforce capability. This has delivered sustained improvements in staff engagement, retention, workplace pride, respect and cultural safety year-on-year.

A Victorian‑first partnership delivering Regional Cochlear Surgery

GV Health

The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital (Eye and Ear)

Regional Victorians face significant barriers accessing cochlear implant surgery, requiring repeated travel to Melbourne and experiencing delays in care. Nationally, fewer than 10% of eligible adults receive cochlear implants, reflecting persistent barriers to referral and access. Cochlear implant surgery and audiological care was delivered locally through a partnership between GV Health and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. Visiting Eye and Ear surgeons at GV Health delivered a shared‑care model and local audiology services were supported by the Victorian Cochlear Implant Program, and integrated pathways.

This improved access, reduced travel burden, strengthened regional capability and life‑changing outcomes for patients.

VVED/AV Collaboration - Embedded Emergency Physician Model

Ambulance Victoria

Northern Health

Emergency care in Victoria was fragmented, with Ambulance Victoria's (AV) triage teams and the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) operating in parallel, limiting patients to appropriate pathways and leaving clinicians working in silos during critical moments. Patients received emergency ambulance responses when virtual or community-based care would've been safer and more appropriate, and paramedics were waiting on scene for VVED consultations that delayed time-critical decisions.

AV and VVED addressed this by embedding a VVED Emergency Physician within AV’s Triage Service. They co-designed escalation pathways, integrated VVED Emergency Physicians into AV operations, and enabled coordinated care across triage and infield settings, ensuring patients entered the best pathway for care.

ANCHORing Caring for Hearing in Children

The Royal Children's Hospital

The Caring for Hearing in Children (CHIC) partnership aims to provide family-centred, evidence-based care that previously did not exist for families of children who are deaf or hard of hearing.

It resolved fragmented, siloed services that prevented children from accessing time-critical investigations and interventions and imposed unnecessary emotional and logistical burdens on families through duplicated assessments and inconsistent care. The partnership has delivered streamlined, personalised, family-centred and evidence-based services for children who are deaf or hard of hearing – improving family engagement and outcomes, efficiency and value of services, while providing a research platform and scalable national model for coordinated, evidence‑driven care.

Access Health and Community

Access Health and Community (AHC) has supported Melbourne’s East for 150+ years. Their work focuses on early intervention, equity and community connection. Grounded in strong partnerships and a committed team, they deliver care that not only improves health and wellbeing, but builds confidence, independence and belonging.

In 2025-26 AHC strengthened its impact by investing in new facilities and services, implementing innovative models-of-care, expanding access in the high-need Yarra Ranges through their merger with Inspiro, and engaging communities overlooked by the service system. This expanded their reach to 70,000+ people, with 92% reporting improved health and wellbeing because of their support.

DPV Health

DPV Health delivers excellent, inclusive care across one of Victoria’s most culturally diverse and rapidly growing catchments. Partnering with consumers, Community Advisors and local organisations, it designs accessible, culturally safe and responsive services that improve health, wellbeing and community connections.

A highly engaged workforce, strong safety culture, disciplined financial management and sustained investment in leadership, digital capability, clinical governance and infrastructure, underpin innovation enabling reinvestment in service expansion in response to community need. The result is a resilient, forward-looking health service which continues to improve individual care outcomes, strengthening community health and wellbeing now and into the future.

Your Community Health

Your Community Health (YourCH) is a leading community health service delivering inclusive, equity-focused care to approximately 16,000 people annually across Melbourne’s north. YourCH consistently demonstrates impact in improving health outcomes through innovative, community-led service delivery, and successfully implemented new programs including Urgent Care and Pharmacotherapy.

Recognised as Australia’s LGBTIQA+ Service Provider of the Year, YourCH also delivered Victoria’s first workplace gendered violence prevention toolkit for LGBTIQA+ communities and finalised its Lived Experience Framework, reinforcing its commitment to inclusion. YourCH completed 57 advocacy actions including Treaty support, strengthened community connection, and reduced CO₂ emissions by 33% over two years.

Central Highlands Rural Health

Central Highlands Rural Health (CHRH) is a small rural service with a mighty footprint, delivering safe, personal, connected and right care across five campuses in central Victoria. Over the past year, CHRH has expanded access to local services, strengthened safety and workforce capability, invested in prevention and community connection, and continued to meet rising demand while remaining financially disciplined and deeply place-based.

From urgent care and theatre redevelopment to women’s health, aged care innovation and positive leadership development, CHRH demonstrates that rural healthcare excellence is built through stewardship, partnership and genuine connection to community. Small but mighty, CHRH delivers Best Care, every time.

Terang & Mortlake Health Service

Terang & Mortlake Health Service (TMHS) demonstrates outstanding leadership as a sustainable, innovative, and community-centred rural health service delivering high-quality care through strong governance, strategic partnerships, and workforce investment. Guided by its Statement of Priorities, TMHS has achieved exceptional patient and staff outcomes, including industry-leading safety culture and patient experience results.

Through innovative telehealth models, expanded community-based care, culturally responsive partnerships, and integrated regional collaborations, TMHS has strengthened access to care while reducing pressure on larger health services. A strong focus on person-centred care, prevention, workforce wellbeing, and continuous improvement has enhanced health outcomes, organisational capability, financial sustainability, and community trust across the region.

West Wimmera Health Service

West Wimmera Health Service (WWHS) demonstrates excellence through innovation, resilience, and community-focused care across nine rural towns. Key achievements include establishing an Outside School Hours Care service to strengthen workforce sustainability and streamlining local refugee intake to improve timely access to care.

WWHS safeguarded access for rural communities by assuming Maternal and Child Health and Commonwealth Home Support Program delivery when local councils withdrew. Two major infrastructure upgrades, worth $11.8M, have delivered state-of-the-art environments. During the devastating Natimuk bushfires, staff provided an exceptional emergency response, protecting vulnerable residents and demonstrating a culture of preparedness, courage, and unwavering commitment to patient safety.

East Grampians Health Service

East Grampians Health Service (EGHS) continues to lead rural healthcare through strong and effective leadership, evidenced in its People Matter survey results, innovative workforce development and exceptional patient outcomes. Victorian Healthcare Experience Survey results show 100% of patients rating care as good or very good, 97.1% positive transitions home, and 20 measures above the Victorian average.

EGHS is driving system-wide change with “Grow your Own”, achieving 100% graduate nurse retention, a landmark Deakin partnership enabling rural Doctor of Medicine training, and community-wide bulk billing reducing urgent care demand by 5%. Strong population health results, a thriving digital presence, consecutive surpluses, and a comprehensive cultural safety framework strengthen EGHS’s impact.

IPC Health

IPC Health supported almost 50,000 clients and delivered nearly 500,000 services across some of Victoria's fastest growing and most disadvantaged communities last year. Guided by its Well for Life 2025–2030 strategy, IPC Health is shifting care toward prevention, earlier intervention and integrated multidisciplinary support with measurable results: 93% fewer ED and hospital presentations for Diabetes Connect clients, stronger safety and quality performance, digitally enabled access and culturally responsive outreach.

With a stable, engaged and purpose driven workforce, IPC Health is not just responding to community need, it is demonstrating how community health can lead system reform and deliver lasting public value.

West Gippsland Healthcare Group

West Gippsland Healthcare Group is a connected, community-centred, and future-focused regional health service delivering high-quality, inclusive, and sustainable care across Gippsland. As one of Victoria’s fastest growing regions, they are proactively responding to population growth, increasing service demand, and ageing infrastructure through innovative models of care, strong community partnerships, workforce development, environmental sustainability initiatives, and responsible financial stewardship.

Their success is built on trusted relationships and a commitment to accessible, responsive care. Most importantly, their people are at the heart of everything they do. Together, they are shaping the future of regional healthcare and improving outcomes for their community.

Monash Health

Monash Health delivers world-leading public healthcare across hospitals, community settings, public health, aged care, research and teaching for one of Australia's fastest-growing and most diverse communities. In 2025-26,Monash Health pioneered nationally significant treatments, improved timely access, expanded care closer to home, strengthened safety and quality, advanced equity and built a workplace culture grounded in meaning, inclusion and care. The achievement is not only the scale of what they do, but the way they combine compassion, innovation, partnership and disciplined stewardship to improve lives in Victoria and beyond.

Northern Health

Northern Health has shifted to a value-based, digitally enabled model designed around timely access, care closer to home and better outcomes. At the centre is the Outcomes for Impact framework, embedding patient-reported outcomes, cost-effectiveness and data visibility into care. Innovation is visible in virtual care.

The Victorian Virtual Emergency Department has delivered 750,000+ consultations, extending across emergency care, outpatients, virtual wards, hospital-in-the-home and digital care pathways, increasing access across Victoria, delivering an estimated $47m in annual savings. Complemented by Craigieburn and Mernda community hospitals, and Northern Patient Watch, Care on Country and North-Mitchell LHSN, Northern Health demonstrates safer, equitable and efficient healthcare.

Western Health

Western Health is one of Victoria’s largest public health services, delivering outstanding care to Melbourne’s fast-growing and diverse west. In 2025–26, they demonstrated excellence through innovation, strong partnerships, and a deep commitment to person-centred, equitable care, including the safe opening of the new Footscray Hospital. Across hospital, community and home-based services, Western Health has improved access, strengthened safety and quality, supported priority populations, and continued to deliver high-quality care while preparing for future growth.

Access Health and Community Volunteers

Access Health and Community

Access Health and Community’s 200+ volunteers contribute 13,000+ hours annually, improving access, reducing isolation and strengthening connection. This impact includes Camcare’s 50 years of volunteer-led support for people experiencing hardship, reaching hundreds of thousands. Through programs like Access to Community, volunteers build confidence, independence and belonging across Victoria.

Hospital Elder Life Program HELP

Grampians Health

Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) at Grampians Health has 25 dedicated volunteers working with clinical teams, preventing delirium and improving outcomes for older patients. Over the past year, volunteers have completed 7,233 patient visits and been an integral part in supporting other Health Services to implement HELP into their hospitals.

Community transport volunteer team

Mallee Track Health and Community Service

Mallee Track Health and Community Service volunteers deliver rural health access across 15 communities, spanning 18,000 square kilometres. Through transport and meal services, they help residents attend appointments, access essentials, stay connected and live independently at home. Their compassionate, adaptable support ensures geography never limits health, wellbeing or community participation.

We are proud to recognise and celebrate health volunteers who have dedicated 30 years or more of service to their communities. The 2026 inductees will be announced at the 20th Victorian Public Healthcare Awards Gala Night, with their names published on our website following the event.