Foundations of Chronic Disease

The Foundations of Chronic Disease course aims to provide students with foundation knowledge and has been designed for professionals new to the field of chronic disease management. The course explores a range of topics including the burden of chronic disease globally and locally, understanding the patient journey and communication styles to enhance health literacy, understanding the use and appropriateness of prevention and prevention tools, identifying readiness for change and health behaviours, and the role of health data to inform service delivery.

Upon successful completion of the course students should have the ability to:

• Understand the definition and burden of chronic disease
• Understand the influencing factors on health
• Identify modifiable and non-modifiable risk factors
• Understand the patient journey and link to coordinated care, cultural safety, health literacy, and communication styles
• Identify the need for prevention and the use of prevention tools
• Understand the role of primary healthcare in care coordination and chronic disease management

Entrants to the Foundations of Chronic Disease course must provide evidence of a relevant professional role. Relevant roles would include:

• Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Health Workers
• Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Practitioners
• Registered Nurses
• Enrolled Nurses
• General Practitioners
• Allied Health Workers
• Others on application.

Online learning and assessment via accessIQ.

There are no formal assessment requirements for this course.

Build an important base level of knowledge for chronic disease management in primary care, the healthcare impact and burden, and enable progression in further specific disease-state learning.

There is no associated workshop with this unit. All learning is online via accessIQ.

Students enrolled in The Benchmarque Group courses should adhere to the following principles:

• Display a commitment to learning and to achieving success
• Be responsible and accountable for their own learning, behaviour and decisions
• Actively participate in all workshop activities and learning experiences
• Attend all scheduled sessions and be punctual at all times
• Complete all online assessments and workplace practice activities
• Work in harmony and respect the rights and opinions of staff and other students
• Treat others as they themselves would like to be treated
• Use acceptable language at all times.

Continuing professional development is the means by which members of the clinical profession maintain, improve and broaden their knowledge, expertise and competence, and develop the personal and professional qualities required throughout their professional lives.

The CPD cycle involves reviewing practice, identifying learning needs, planning and participating in relevant learning activities, and reflecting on the value of those activities.

As a general guide, one hour of active learning equates to one hour of CPD. It is the responsibility of the individual student to calculate how many hours of active learning have been completed. The hours of active learning estimated above should act as a guide to CPD hours.

For all other health professionals completing this program, your continuing professional development (CPD) requirements may vary and it is important to remember that it is your responsibility to maintain and register CPD with your professional body. In many instances, your regulatory authority will recognise hours of learning as stated above.

12 months. The time is calculated from when a student is provided with online access to their assessment. Within the accessIQ platform, students will be provided an initial 6 months to complete and submit all required assessment activities. Friendly email reminders will be sent to students to ensure an assessment is completed on time. At the completion of the 6 month period, students can request up to a maximum of 2 extensions, each extension being for a period of 90 days. If requesting a second extension, the request must be in writing.

If the entire 12 month period expires and a final assessment has not been submitted, The Benchmarque Group reserves the right to deem the assessment Not Competent and remove the student from the program.

If you are deemed Not Yet Competent on your first and second assessment submissions, feedback will be provided. It is very important that you read all the feedback provided. The Assessor will have identified any areas where additional evidence is required or any questions that need to be reviewed and resubmitted. If, after 3 unsuccessful submissions, you are unable to demonstrate competency on your assessment, your assessment will be deemed Not Competent. Feedback will be provided to you and what the possible following steps and outcomes are.