COAG meets in Darwin

The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders made the trip to Darwin for the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 2 July. The meeting, which was held in the Darwin Convention Centre, focused on COAG’s Closing the Gap commitments in relation to Indigenous disadvantage.

Chief Minister Paul Henderson took the opportunity to make a presentation on the Territory Government’s Shared Electronic Health Record project, which falls under the Working Futures initiative. The service provides health care workers with up-to-date information on a patient’s medical background, including their previous medical treatments, current medications, allergies, and immunisations. In remote communities, the service is used to overcome cultural, language and distance barriers by providing health workers with important patient information that may have been harder to access in the past.

COAG also discussed other issues including education, food security and Internet access for remote Indigenous communities and the importance of having more comprehensive data collection to monitor and measure the progress of initiatives.

For more information on how the Territory Government is addressing Indigenous disadvantage, visit www.workingfuture.nt.gov.au