The OPTIMISE Project
OPTIMISE is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Partnership Project grant to improve primary health care delivery to refugees living in Australia. Over the next four years (2016-2020), OPTIMISE will implement collaborative, system-oriented approaches to increase access to primary care services, optimise systems for transferring people of a refugee like background between refugee focussed health services and mainstream care, build primary care capacity to deliver high quality care to refugees, and, improve coordination of care across the health and settlement sectors.
OPTIMISE brings together academics from Monash University, the University of New South Wales, La Trobe University and the University of Ottawa with 12 leading Victorian, NSW and national partner organisations committed to improving primary health care delivery to refugees in Australia: Enliven, Monash Health, cohealth, NSW Refugee Health Service, North Western Melbourne PHN, South Western Sydney PHN, AMES Australia, Settlement Services International, Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, Victorian Refugee Health Network, Refugee Health Network of Australia and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
The OPTIMISE Partnership Project focuses on three Australian regions with high refugee resettlement: South East Melbourne, North and West Melbourne and South West Sydney. In the last 10 years alone, these regions received 51,000 humanitarian entrants equivalent to 36% of national intake.