Australian Government Department of Health

The Commonwealth and State of Victoria were faced with the challenge of coordinating the response to COVID-19 within the Victorian Aged Care system, a system that includes over 750 facilities with 52,000 older, vulnerable Australians. This challenge was unprecedented in Australia.

Senior operational members of the Respond Global team were asked to deploy to Melbourne to assist the Commonwealth and Victorian authorities and the Victoria Aged Care Response Centre (VACRC) to achieve a steady state in the current crisis and to manage concurrent outbreaks of COVID-19 at 150 residential aged care facilities.

In addition, Dr Norton led the rapid build and deployment of the VACRC response system to enable comprehensive tracking and reporting across facilities.