ClinConnect
What is ClinConnect?ClinConnect Timelines
ClinConnect Coordinator Role
Communication
Training
NSW Integrated Regional Clinical Training Networks
Who do I contact for further information?
News update - May 2012
New information on this page:
- ClinConnect Timelines
- NSW Integrated Regional Clinical Training Networks
- Communication & Training
New publications:
- A new Communiqué - April 2012
- An updated ClinConnect Coordinators Contact List
- A ClinConnect Background Information sheet
What is ClinConnect?
ClinConnect is a web-based application being built to assist health services (Local Health Districts and Networks) and education providers to manage clinical placements for Nursing and Midwifery, Dental and Oral Health, Allied Health and Medical students. It will be used for booking placements in Nursing & Midwifery, Allied Health and Dental & Oral Health and will be used to record placement and student details for Medicine. This initiative is co-sponsored by NSW Health’s Workforce Planning and Development Branch and Nursing and Midwifery Office. The development of a state-wide clinical placement management system will support education providers and health facilities manage clinical training demand and capacity and reporting requirements to state and national level. ClinConnect will be used for all placements undertaken in NSW Health facilities in the target professions.
The system aims to achieve the following:
- Provide a single portal for organising and managing clinical placements across NSW Health facilities
- Enhance clinical placement efficiency and visibility by providing a single system for all placements
- Provide greater transparency and fairness in clinical placements
- Reduce the manual workload of the coordination of clinical placements
- Enable health services and education providers to produce reports on student placements in NSW Health facilities
- Meet the national reporting obligations for Health Workforce Australia (HWA)
More information about the ClinConnect Project including background, consultations, target professions, scope and governance and Implementation Planning can be found in the ClinConnect Background Information Sheet published on this page.
ClinConnect Timelines
ClinConnect is scheduled to Go Live in early July 2012 in time for booking 2013 clinical placements. The ‘build stage’ of ClinConnect finished at end February 2012, with System Testing completed between March 2012 to mid April 2012. User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is taking place from mid-April 2012 through May 2012. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from health services and education providers will take part in UAT and will be testing the end to end use of the system. State-wide training for ClinConnect will be conducted over a 5 week period from end of May 2012 through July 2012.
The booking timelines for the 2013 Cycle 1 (1 January – 30 June 2013) will be published once confirmed. These timelines will inform when health services and education providers will have access to the system and include set dates when they have access to review units, request, approve, accept and manage clinical placements. Thereafter, timelines for each clinical placement cycle will be renegotiated and published annually.
ClinConnect Coordinator Role
Health services and education providers have each appointed or nominated a ClinConnect Coordinator to provide a key centralised contact for their organisation.
The Coordinator is the single point of governance, communication and leadership for clinical placements across all disciplines for their organisation in relation to ClinConnect. The Coordinator will contribute to decisions in relation to ClinConnect and will liaise closely with the ClinConnect State-wide Application Manager. The Coordinator is also responsible for ensuring that the right users receive appropriate training to use ClinConnect. A contact list for all Health and EP Coordinators is published on this page as well as a description of the ClinConnect coordinator roles and responsibilities.
Communication
- Regular communiqués are circulated to stakeholder groups and posted on this webpage to provide information on project progress. Keep checking back here for the latest Communiqué
- ClinConnect articles have been published in newsletters such as the Nursing & Midwifery Office newsletter and HETIscape. If you are aware of any other newsletters which would be appropriate to include information on ClinConnect, please contact the ClinConnect team.
- A new Policy Directive mandating the use of ClinConnect for all NSW Health clinical placements is to be circulated shortly.
Training
The state-wide training model is a train-the-trainer approach. The ClinConnect team will train a cohort of health service and education provider trainers who will then be responsible for on-training their local users. The ClinConnect team will conduct training across the state in health service and education provider venues, as well as at the Ministry of Health. The state-wide training schedule has been finalised and communicated to all Coordinators along with guidelines for developing local training plans. Interstate Education Providers have been provided dates for training at the Ministry of Health. To find out about training in your health service or education provider organisation, please contact your ClinConnect Coordinator.
The ClinConnect training strategy aims to ensure the maximum number of users are trained and comfortable in using ClinConnect prior to Go Live. The emphasis of training will be practical, so that the different types of users will be able to effectively perform their role in ClinConnect.
NSW Integrated Regional Clinical Training Networks
- Nationally, Health Workforce Australia is implementing a range of initiatives to expand the capacity of the health system to provide the clinical training necessary to meet workforce requirements
- One of these initiatives is the establishment of Integrated Regional Clinical Training Networks (IRCTN). These networks aim to build clinical training capacity through facilitating collaborative, strategic planning of clinical training between education and clinical training providers at a regional level.
- The Health Education & Training Institute (HETI) is currently implementing the interdisciplinary clinical training network structure within NSW. A final implementation paper on the networks will be published on this web page shortly which will include the final model for networks within NSW. The HETI website will contain more detail around implementation of the networks in NSW.
- A key enabler for strategic planning is the ability to identify and interrogate data on clinical placement capacity, activity and trends – ClinConnect will therefore be fundamental to supporting the strategic planning of health services, education providers and the networks.
- The consultation process for the Health Workforce Australia Integrated Regional Clinical Training Networks (IRCTN) has included information on ClinConnect and its importance in supporting the strategic planning process that will occur through those networks.
Who do I contact for further information?
For specific questions about your profession or local processes, you may also contact the Ministry of Health SME lead or one of the SME contacts or the ClinConnect Coordinator for your health service or education provider.
We welcome your feedback and comments on how we can improve this site and what information you feel would be valuable to include here or as articles in suggested newsletters.
Please direct any queries, comments or feedback around ClinConnect to: clinical_placements@doh.health.nsw.gov.au