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Next month, I will attend the National Chair and CEO joint co-operative meeting in Canberra where I will have an opportunity to raise concerns facing primary care and collaborate with PHNs nationally to find solutions for the many issues facing the sector at present.
Primary Sense is the data extraction tool used in most practices on the Gold Coast to assist with decision making at point of care. The more a doctor codes diagnoses and reasons for visit, the more useful the tool will be. For example, coding Chronic Kidney Disease will generate more useful medication alerts.
If I can encourage GPs to code all the reasons for visits, rather than free typing, we will generate more GP data to help discussions with the Department of Health about the value proposition of general practice. It would be nice to know how many different reasons for visits are covered with each consult.
As you know, BEACH is used to assist with general practice data but has not existed for many years. We can use the data from Primary Sense to help demonstrate all the excellent work that is occurring in primary care with better data inputs which enables us to show federal government the “worth” of general practice. For example, if someone is a risk band category 4/5, they are much more likely to be admitted to hospital, and Primary Sense will prompt when plans, health assessments or reviews or medication reviews are indicated usually at a 3-month interval. There is a new frailty report that can be downloaded and care wrapped around this vulnerable group.
Urgent Care Clinics (UCC) are being set up across the country as part of a federal government initiative. GCPHN is assisting with receiving EOI. The ministerial announcement on improving access to primary care in Queensland was released. This can be viewed here.
An initial Registration of Interest (ROI) process is being undertaken to allow accredited general practices and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services to review the information on the Medicare UCCs before submitting their ROI.
Eleven new Medicare UCCs will be established in Queensland, including one location in the Gold Coast region. GCPHN is inviting ROIs for the following locations (and their surrounding suburbs):
More information has been emailed. The time frame is set by the Commonwealth.
The Gold Coast is experiencing a decline in childhood immunisation rates and GCPHN is inviting all practices to consider doing a QI focus area in 2023 on this. To assist, GCPHN has developed a Childhood Vaccination QI Toolkit /Action Plan to support practices through the QI.
For more information, please contact the practice support team from GCPHN on practicesupport@gcphn.com.au or call 07 5612 5408.
Kind Regards,
Dr Lisa Beecham
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