Identification resources

Identification of Aboriginal patients – a way of targeting health care to improve health status

It is important to determine whether your patient is of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent because:

• The health status of the Australian ATSI in general requires that ATSI people are cared for in a timely and appropriate manner.
• ATSI people have different health care entitlements in order to improve their health,
• population has unique health requirements. For instance in terms of immunisation, some immunisations have different dosage requirements for Aboriginal Australians than for non-Aboriginal Australians.

MGPN is in the process of surveying our local general practitioners to better understand the health needs and health care access issues for the ATSI population in order to target our general practice ATSI information and support. To this end, the MGPN General Practice Survey contained questions about ATSI health care provision.

Cultural identification – the issues.

Cultural identification is a challenging issue and any ATSI population health figures are likely to be an underrepresentation of the facts for a number of reasons:

• Many health care providers do not ask whether their patients are of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent - despite RACGP standards requiring GPs to work towards recording the self identified cultural background of patients and being able to identify important cultural groups within their practice.
  See Identification of  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australian general practice
  See also: INTERPRETIVE GUIDE of the RACGP Standards for general practices (3rd edition)
  
• Aboriginality cannot be determined by appearance alone.
• Self identification -  aboriginal people may not identify themselves as of Aboriginal descent for many reasons inluding:
  
  • to avoid discrimination.
  • because they do not feel culturally accepted or comfortable

1. providing a welcoming and friendly environment
2. displaying the ABS self identification poster
3. Including the self identification question on the patient intake form

Identification Resources:

• Poster 1 - Closing the Gap
• Poster 2 - Closing the Gap plus
• The Lowitja Institute publications - Improving Identification for GP Services 
• MJA article (Volume 192 Number 10,  17 May 2010, page 609) - Just Ask
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
• National best practice guidelines for collecting Indigenous status in health data sets