Enhancing the management of primary care with Primary Sense

As an early adopter of Primary Sense, and in my role as Chair of the Primary Sense National Clinical Advisory Group, I have witnessed Primary Sense’s evolution from a tool used by more than 700 Gold Coast-based GPs, (representing almost 90 per cent of the region’s population), to a scaled-up version that enables general practice staff across the country to access risk stratification, real time prompts and alerts, and on-demand reporting.

I have been using Primary Sense in my Gold Coast practice since 2018 and have experienced firsthand how it can significantly enhance the management of care, particularly for patients with complex, chronic conditions, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of practice management.

A significant benefit of Primary Sense is illustrated by a case study from the Gold Coast where GPs were able to proactively target a specific group of their patients with an immunisation intervention. Primary Sense reduced the risk of hospitalisation from influenza when, during May and July 2022, GPs identified that 75% of their most high-risk patients were not vaccinated. In-consult prompts generated by Primary Sense resulted in 45% of these patients being vaccinated early in the flu season, giving them protection from the virus. I am confident that as more general practices use Primary Sense, we will see similar success stories.

The clinical benefits of Primary Sense were featured in the November 2022 edition.

The article focuses on research that measured Gold Coast-based GPs’ response rates to computer decision support alerts at the point of care over a period of 12 months.

Key findings included:

GPs acted on 40% of the suggested interventions from medication safety alerts. The top alerts were:

1. Bisphosphonate medication for osteoporosis, where latest eGFR is <35 mL/min/1.73m2 (67% response rate)
2. Antiplatelet drug for patient with history of peptic ulcer or gastrointestinal bleed and no gastroprotection (63% response rate)
3. Immunosuppressive drugs without relevant lab tests within the past six months (50% response rate)

GPs acted on 20% of the suggested interventions from care prompts. The top prompts were:

1. Due influenza vaccination: complexity 4 or 5 or pregnant (72% response rate)
2. Due pertussis vaccination in pregnancy after 20 weeks (47% response rate)
3. Missing CV risk medication (statin and antihypertensive) when CV score is >15% (46% rate)

It has been six months since Primary Health Networks (PHNs) started rolling out Primary Sense to general practices across the country. More than 800 general practices across Australia are now using Primary Sense’s comprehensive range of features and benefits, not previously available to general practice in a single software application, to assist with clinical decision making and continuous quality improvement. So far,10 PHNs have chosen to offer Primary Sense as their population management, clinical decision support and data extraction tool, and more are expected to transition to it in the new financial year. Collectively, PHNs are on track to roll out Primary Sense to about 2,000 practices by June 2023.

I appreciate from my firsthand experience that, as with any new IT system, it can be challenging as practice staff familiarise themselves with the new features and functionality. The National Clinical Advisory Group, the Primary Sense team and WA Primary Health Alliance are here to support you, to listen and to learn from your experiences.

I encourage GPs and practice teams to provide feedback to their local PHN. It is only by working collaboratively with general practices across the country that we will enable Primary Sense’s full potential to be realised. Work is well underway to build on the first six months of Primary Sense’s national rollout, and, excitingly, new reports, alerts and prompts are in the pipeline. I look forward to providing you with another update in the future. In the meantime, please find a snapshot of recent activity attached.

Dr Lisa Beecham

Primary Sense National Clinical Advisory Group Chair