Improving general practice care

The General Practice QI team helps general practices implement continuous quality improvement strategies. They have supported several QI projects, including First Nations immunisation, medication safety, cervical screening self-collection, pneumococcal immunisation and some cardiovascular risk initiatives. 

The First Nations and CALD Quality Improvement Project was introduced to increase capacity and capabilities of general practitioner (GP) services to support patients following the COVID-19 pandemic. The project aimed to increase awareness of health assessments, catch up on patient immunisation, and up-skill staff in referral pathways and use of interpreting services.

Outcomes:

• 18 practices participated in the project 
• updated patient questionnaires to include ethnicity and country of birth
• practices now provide a pre-screening checklist to capture patient need for additional immunisations and to help set up clinical reminders
• practices refined delegating tasks to team members, allowing GPs to focus on clinical responsibilities   
• increased number of patients who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, assessments and understanding of chronic disease management
• improved cultural awareness among practice staff  
• significant uptake for the Shingles vaccine Shingrix, which will continue to increase as stock becomes more available

Each practice was presented with a storytelling artwork outlining the journey to health improvements. 

Building change champions for MyMedicare

We invited general practices to attend a face-to-face workshop as part of the Practice-Centred MyMedicare Support program to increase understanding of new primary health reform initiatives. The event featured presentations from experts Dr Walid Jammal and Dr Paresh Dawda on population health management and the long-term benefits of key primary health reforms such as MyMedicare.

As a result of the workshop, one practice, which had not initially engaged in the MyMedicare support program, saw the benefits of the program and what this could mean for them, their staff and their patients.

Recognising their engagement and interest in actioning what they had learned, Brisbane South PHN extended an invitation to this practice for a one-on-one coaching session with our GP subject matter expert. The practice discussed strategies to leverage MyMedicare and the General Practice in Aged Care Incentive to achieve higher-performing primary healthcare.

This practice has now been identified as an emerging leader and change champion, and shows the importance of practices and providers understanding and investing in MyMedicare to reap the benefits.

Primary Sense: connecting practice data to clinical decisions for
improved care

Brisbane South PHN has successfully onboarded 90% of local general practices to using Primary Sense, a PHN-owned and operated data extraction, clinical audit and decision support tool.

Over the year, the Digital Health team began the next stage of change management to develop users of the tool. Working with other PHNs using Primary Sense, our Digital Health team has helped shape the tool to meet the needs and expectations of both general practices and PHNs.

• The Digital Health team supported 955 interactions with general practices about Primary Sense.  
• Brisbane South PHN used Primary Sense data to be one of the first PHNs nationally to release Practice Reports to general practices. By 30 June 2024, 177 general practice users across 103 practices were onboarded to access the reports.
• Brisbane South PHN also began scoping for further reports to be released to cover diabetes, cancer screening, MBS items and health assessments.  
• The Digital Health team developed a Digital Health Quick Help Guide to support general practices in being proactive to maintain and update key digital-health-related information.
• Brisbane South PHN began scoping for a palliative care report to be created as a joint project between Brisbane South PHN, Metro South Health’s Health Palliative Care Unit and Primary Sense.

Supporting local nurses

The Practice Nurse Support Program (PNSP) provides practice nurses with training, resources, mentoring and support to help improve patient wellbeing through prevention, early intervention and self-management of chronic conditions.

Results:

• 27 practice nurses completed updated PNSP modules as part of our Practice Nurse Online Learning course
• 108 practice nurses participated in PNSP activities 
• 79 new enrolments in the program
• 59 nurses completed the program 
• Central and Eastern Sydney PHN has implemented their own practice nurse support role, using components of our resources and online learning modules.