Understanding vulnerability in primary health care: Overcoming barriers to consumer transitions through the primary health system.

Demands on the Australian health system require primary health care (PHC) delivery to be cost-effective and sustainable. It is recognised that some people need more health care than others in order to become and remain healthy. 'Vulnerable' groups are identified through analysis of population health and service data. Identifying need at the level of population groups is an important strategy in policy development to focus attention on groups that would otherwise often be very marginalised in the health system. Programmatic funding and targeted fee-for-service approaches build expertise to provide specialised PHC to consumers from some vulnerable populations; however, a systematic response is required to ensure PHC for vulnerable consumers is timely, appropriate and able to respond to new demands. This project considered the refugee health response of a large inner suburban community health service in Victoria as a case study to investigate ways to improve the management and coordination of primary health care service delivery to vulnerable consumers over the long term.The research reported in this paper is a project of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute which is supported by a grant from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing under the Primary Health Care Research Evaluation and Development Strategy