Stepdown service opens doors in South Australia

The service, run by Medibank’s Amplar Health, provides 10 beds for patients transitioning between hospital and home.

South Australia’s second “stepdown” service – designed to help patients stranded in hospital to transition back to home – has opened in the Adelaide suburb of Walkerville.

The 10 beds at College Grove are the first of 50 to be opened for patients in Adelaide hospitals, including the Royal Adelaide and The Queen Elizabeth, who can’t return immediately to the community.

“Our hospitals are under enormous pressure, and we need to do things differently. Alternative models of care are crucial to provide a high-quality public health system for the 21st century,” said Blair Boyle, the South Australian minister for health and wellbeing.

The stepdown healthcare model, a collaboration between the Central Adelaide Local Health Network and Amplar Health, a provider within the Medibank group, is for those awaiting aged care beds, needing convalescent care, National Disability Insurance Scheme planning or pre-and-post-operative care.

The minister said the model kept acute care beds for those who needed them while supporting patients who still needed recovery care.

“It offers a structured, supportive environment for gradual transition back to the community following a hospital stay, providing appropriate care outside of a hospital setting, ensuring the right support matches the patient’s needs. Importantly – it frees up hospital beds,” said Medibank in a company announcement.

---

Related   

Hospitals QLD Health

Queensland Health signs deal to shift public patients to private beds

Federal Government Hospitals Members

Is $2bn what it would take to clear the aged care bed block?

Digital Health Hospitals Members

We don’t need more hospital beds, we need better connection

---

The College Grove launch follows the opening of a 48-bed stepdown service at the Pullman Adelaide hotel, also run with Amplar Health, in February last year. At the time, AMA South Australia said it was “not a long-term solution to our health crisis”.

ECH College Grove is a community-based centre about 4km northeast of the Adelaide city centre. It provides health and wellbeing services, social programs and allied health services to older people. It also has the ECH Care Hotel for short-stay accommodation.