Main Navigation
Beyond the Gap Program
SA Pharmacy acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, waters and community. We recognise the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ vast knowledge in native plants and their uses, and that Culture and Country provide medicines and healing. They were our first pharmacists. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal people today.
Background
Beyond the Gap is a program run in partnership between SA Pharmacy and Aboriginal Health within the Department for Health and Wellbeing. It was created because there is more we can do to make medicines management safe, connected and culturally responsive for Aboriginal patients, and because good medicines care is much more than just a list of tablets.
Beyond the Gap looks at the whole person, not just their medicines. This means knowing someone's story, respecting their choices, involving their family and support people, and recognising the holistic view of health that matters to Aboriginal communities.
Central to the program is the development of a new standard for continuity in medicines management across a patient’s hospital stay. This identifies important moments in a hospital journey and asks staff to practise cultural safety at every one of them: asking rather than assuming, focusing on a person's strengths, respecting their choices, building trust, and making sure their cultural needs and preferences are properly recorded.
BtG sponsor, Cheyne Sullivan and team member, Glenys Sumner created the original Beyond the Gap Program artwork (PDF 562KB). It speaks to the heart of how we work: a team guided by Aboriginal voices and self-determination, built on core principles that support people throughout their medicines journey in hospital.
What is Continuity in Medicines Management?
Continuity in Medicines Management is the ongoing coordination required to support the safety and quality of medicines management over time, within and between healthcare and community settings, medicine access schemes and healthcare providers.
What this means is making sure the right information and the right support, follow a person wherever their care takes them so that nothing important is ever missed when it comes to their medicine.
For example, a person might visit an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, be admitted to hospital, move between teams within hospital, move between hospitals, access medicines through different schemes, and then return home. Each step involves different people, places and systems and continuity is the coordination that holds it all together so nothing important is missed.
When this coordination works well, people stay safe. When information that matters is missed and continuity breaks down a person's health can suffer.
How the program works
Co-design, in plain terms
We are designing Beyond the Gap together with the people it is for. This means sitting down with Aboriginal patients, families, community members and healthcare staff and listening to what is and isn’t working and building solutions from what we hear.
Co-design is sometimes treated as a formal method with strict rules. We treat it simply as how we work: genuine conversations, shared decisions, and respect for community knowledge at every stage.
Yarning
Much of our engagement happens through yarning. These are relaxed, guided conversations that give people the space to share experiences in their own words and at their own pace. What we hear in yarning workshops directly shapes the changes we make to the program.
Partnerships and, cultural values and cultural safety
The program is led in partnership with Aboriginal Health, Aboriginal community, and staff guiding how we work. We are mindful that community voices stay at the centre and that the people closest to this work, and know it best, are recognised for it and valued for their contribution.
What does the future state look like?
Our goal is a health system that genuinely works well for Aboriginal people when it comes to their medicines. One shaped by Aboriginal governance, community and healthcare staff, and values, that is built on cultural safety.
- Healthcare staff who have cultural awareness and practical skills that can support Aboriginal patients in a safe, respectful and effective way.
- More Aboriginal people receiving consistent, coordinated, high quality care wherever they are in the health system.
- Better connections across the health system, so that important medicines information is properly recorded and shared and follows people as they move between services.
- Clear accountability, so that everyone involved knows their role and takes responsibility for getting it right.
Who’s involved
Beyond the Gap is a partnership between SA Pharmacy and Aboriginal Health within the Department for Health and Wellbeing. The work is guided by Aboriginal governance and community: Aboriginal Health DHW, a Steering Committee (includes a consumer representative), Aboriginal Community and Network Engagement Officer and yarning with community.
The health system must support Continuity in Medicines Management for all Aboriginal people, regardless of how, where and when patients choose to receive care.
The Beyond the Gap journey - July 2022 to June 2027
- Preliminary phase
- Discovery phase
- Co-design and development
- Co-design and implementation
- Implementation and review