Right Care, Right Time introduces groundbreaking innovation in public health communication through its systems approach to service navigation, validated through research and real-world implementation.
The framework represents a user-centred redesign of health service categorisation in Victoria, moving beyond traditional medical hierarchies to intuitive public understanding.
Key innovations include creating Urgent Care as a distinct category bridging everyday and emergency care – addressing a critical gap in public understanding identified through extensive consumer research. This category innovation provides clear alternatives to emergency department attendance, potentially reducing system pressure whilst improving consumer outcomes.
The January 2025 campaign launch demonstrated this innovation’s effectiveness, specifically promoting three urgent care services: Nurse-on-Call, Virtual Emergency Care, and Urgent Care Clinics across 29 Victorian locations.
The ‘traffic light’ metaphor application to health services represents unique problem-solving, leveraging universal colour understanding to transcend language and literacy barriers. Campaign implementation across eight languages – including Simplified Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, and Arabic – proved this visual innovation’s cross-cultural effectiveness.
Innovation extends to comprehensive demographic adaptation, creating tailored campaign messaging for parents of young children, parents of teenagers, and young adults aged 20–39, whilst maintaining overall framework coherence.
The easy-to-understand visual hierarchy supports information delivery across multiple channels, from 30-second ads to detailed web resources at urgentcare.vic.gov.au.
Implementation methodology innovation provides government departments with systematic approaches for consistent service communication whilst maintaining local adaptation flexibility.
The framework’s integration of physical and digital touchpoints creates seamless user experiences across channels, demonstrated through the campaign’s multi-platform approach spanning television, radio, social media, search, and print.
The user-centred approach represents a paradigm shift from provider-focused to public-focused health communication, creating genuine innovation in government service design.
Campaign results demonstrate how strategic design thinking solves complex public policy challenges whilst improving measurable human outcomes – positioning Victoria as a leader in strategic health communication design globally.
