Vision: “Better health, Better Lifestyles, Stronger Communities.”

Background

Inspired by a vision of strong, vibrant communities and healthy lifestyles, La Trobe Community Health improves access to healthcare and provides better information about healthy lifestyle choices.

Its innovative approach to healthcare is to treat all clients and patients as a person, not as a series of isolated medical problems. This personal attention and care in service delivery has helped Latrobe Community Health Service become one of Australia’s fastest growing health services, with over a dozen locations around Victoria.

Some of its services include community-based health promotion programs, daily living and rehabilitation assistance, health checks and healthcare plans, medical care and nursing.

Challenge

Conscious Governance was contacted to deliver a full Strategic Board Governance & Operations Review. This included a desktop review of Board documents, an on-site desk audit of governance processes, electronic stakeholder survey, one-on-one interviews with Board members and the eventual collation and analysis of evaluation results.

While it must participate in regular Board evaluations to remain compliant, La Trobe Community Health took this evaluation as an opportunity to explore further opportunities for growth and to extract even more value from the work of the Board.

Impact

Conscious Governance was able to help the Board fine tune the work of the governance and nominations committees, as well as improve the processes, decision making and the outputs of the Board and senior executive team.

This Governance Review included a review of Board strategic processes, Board structure, constitution, Board and stakeholder communication, Board compliance responsibilities and strategic operational issues that directly affect organizational governance.

Recommendations were made to better embed the strategic plan into La Trobe Community Health’s Board agenda in a more comprehensive manner. While it was already a high performing Board, this recommendation helped to enable Board meetings to remain focused on creating the desired future.

The evaluation helped the Board remain compliant, more capable of delivering effective governance and re-focused on its Vision and purpose.