Sustainability and Viability Initiative (SAVI)
Supporting sustainable primary care across the North Coast
The Sustainability and Viability Initiative (SAVI) is supporting general practices and Aboriginal Medical Services across the North Coast to better understand their current sustainability and viability, while providing access to practical support that strengthens long-term capability.
SAVI at a glance
- Voluntary and confidential
- Available to general practices and Aboriginal Medical Services across Mid North Coast & Northern NSW
- Assessment across 3 key domains – workforce, operations and finance
- Tailored benchmarking report for participating practices
- Ongoing practice support and capability building through the SAVI initiative.
How SAVI works
What is SAVI?
SAVI is a practical tool designed to give practices a clearer picture of what’s working well and where there may be opportunities to strengthen sustainability over time, regardless of size, location or current circumstances.
The initiative helps general practices and Aboriginal Medical Services self-assess their workforce, operations and financial sustainability. Following completion of the assessment, participating practices receive a tailored benchmarking report that provides practical insights into their business and identifies opportunities for future planning and improvement.
Participation in the SAVI assessment is voluntary, and all assessment results remain confidential.
Program timeline
SAVI assessment launched across the North Coast
Initial assessment period concluded and benchmarking reports prepared for participating practices. Interested practices can contact their Regional Manager following the initial assessment period.
Benchmarking reports released to participating practices.
Phased rollout of practice support, consulting, education and capability-building activities.
Participating practices will be invited to complete a follow-up SAVI assessment to measure progress, identify changes over time and inform future support.
What participating practices can expect
Who can participate?
The SAVI assessment is available to all general practices and Aboriginal Medical Services within the Healthy North Coast region.
What happens after the assessment?
Receiving your benchmarking report is the beginning of your SAVI journey.
Participating practices will receive ongoing support throughout the SAVI initiative. Depending on individual practice priorities and identified areas of focus, support may include:
- A Practice Support Plan to capture priorities and guide improvement activities
- Tailored consulting through Larter Consulting
- Education and capability-building opportunities
- Practical resources developed throughout the initiative
- Ongoing support from their Healthy North Coast Regional Manager
Additional support activities and engagement opportunities will become available throughout the SAVI initiative, with further information shared as the program progresses.
Tailored practice support
As part of the next phase of SAVI, Healthy North Coast has partnered with Larter Consulting to provide practical, tailored support to participating practices.
Larter Consulting will work alongside participating practices to help teams better understand and interpret their benchmarking results, identify opportunities for improvement, and strengthen long-term sustainability.
Support may include:
- Identifying opportunities for service innovation and growth
- Understanding and interpreting benchmarking reports, practice data and performance trends
- Workforce planning and succession strategies
- Operational improvement and workflow optimisation
- Financial sustainability and business planning
- Strategic planning and organisational capability development
SAVI
Practice Support
Service provider market scan
Healthy North Coast is currently delivering the Sustainability and Viability Initiative across the North Coast region.
SAVI is designed to support general practices and Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHOs) to better understand their current sustainability and viability across workforce, operations and finance domains. Participating practices receive tailored insights that may assist with future planning, business improvement, and identifying areas for further support.
As part of the next phase of the initiative, we are undertaking a market scan to identify organisations and service providers with experience supporting general practice, ACCHOs and the broader primary care sector.
Information gathered through this process will inform an internal service provider directory that we may use to better understand available services and, where appropriate, facilitate connections between practices and external providers.
If your organisation would like to nominate its services for inclusion in the market scan, please complete the form below.
Healthy North Coast may contact organisations for clarification or additional information if required.
Submission of information does not guarantee inclusion in the internal service provider directory, referral activity, or endorsement by Healthy North Coast. Participating practices will independently determine which services or providers best meet their needs.
Interested in participating?
If your practice would like to learn more about SAVI or discuss participating following the initial assessment period, please contact your Regional Manager.
We are excited to roll out the SAVI assessment to support primary care providers in our region and to build a healthier North Coast.
The SAVI assessment has been developed and tested by Hunter New England and Central Coast PHN, in partnership with Semantic Consulting, who have been engaged to assist practices in our region interpret their data to best understand business needs.