Rare Care Centre Innovation Lab brings health industry leaders together to help kids in need

Health industry leaders have come together to help more children in need after the State’s Rare Care Centre became a world leader in helping children with little-known diseases. The Rare Care Centre, a world-leading organisation based at Perth Children’s Hospital and funded with the help of Telethon, works to streamline access to services for the 63,000 children in WA living with a rare disease. Health, science and innovation industry leaders including from the Department of Health and Education, WA Country Health Service, and Minister for Science and Medical Research Stephen Dawson came together on Friday to discuss how to make care for children even better. Rare Care Centre medical director Gareth Baynam said it was the centre’s holistic approach that prompted some of the biggest leaders in health to come together to work out how they can help even more kids. “It is that holistic model that is returning so much benefit to the children and families and that has shown our global leadership position and it’s attracting all the global talent and knowledge and partnerships here,” he said. “The opportunity now is to take that global leadership position and all the means for the health of children in WA, and accelerate on that for the benefit of our kids.” Deloitte WA health lead Tanya West said the Rare Care Centre was world-leading and she hoped discussions like this could eventually mean the State become the home of a global centre of excellence for childhood rare diseases. “We have pulled together change-makers across several organisations, government agencies, and departments and put it in their hands to say what is the opportunity for not only the 63,000 children in WA, who are obviously our priority, but also nationally and globally,” she said. “The globe looks to Gareth and his team for guidance already. “They’re punching so far above their weight so we brought people together through a Deloitte innovation lab to test the thinking of what is possible for these children.” The innovation lab comes after a new network of rare disease experts was formed earlier this year to develop personalised medicines for the trickiest and often undiagnosed cases in children across the State.