Integral to this vision is a healthy population and a world-class health system.

The BCA Healthy Australia Task Force embraces the concept that health is everybody’s business.

Business can make to the health debate and to policies determining the focus, funding, delivery and measurement of improved health outcomes.

While it has functioned successfully to date, Australia’s health system must now be adapted to new and emerging needs. Healthcare reform should aim to:

• Improve the health of all Australians to underpin future social and economic prosperity.
  
• Improve the effectiveness and efficiency with which the healthcare system operates.

In March 2009 the BCA released a blueprint for healthcare service reform titled Fit for the Job: Adapting to Australia’s New Healthcare Challenges. It argued that our health services have many parts that do not function effectively as one system. It recommended:

• reorganising the system around patients’ needs and around the new patterns of disease
• a new comprehensive health strategy,
• an independent health commission to carry out that strategy, integrate Australia’s fragmented national health services, boost efficiency and drive the reforms required to meet the needs of the future
• the establishment of national, patient-based information systems.

In February 2011 the BCA released a paper titled Using Microeconomic Reform to Deliver Patient-Centred Health Care, setting out the case for using microeconomic reform as part of health reform.

Its companion paper presents selected financial and economic facts about health and the healthcare sector.

The BCA will continue to highlight the importance of high-quality health care to a productive workforce.

BCA Secretariat contact: Ruth Dunkin, Director Policy