Australian Primary Care Collaboratives (APCC)

Program officer

Tracey Roebuck and Natalie Virgon-Milton 5222 0800

Quicklinks

Entering Patient and Clinical data information into Best Practice

Program summary

The Australian Primary Care Collaboratives program (APCC) is a proven system of improving health care through shared learning, peer support, training, education and support systems. The program uses the quality improvement methodology "Plan, Do, Study, Act", rapid cycles of testing and measurement of the effects of small change ideas to drive and build sustainable improvements.

There are three topic areas included in the APCC program: Diabetes; Coronary Heart Disease and Access. The individual aim for each topic area within participating Practices are:

that 90 per cent of patients should be able to access their primary health care professional of choice on the day of their choice
that 50 per cent of patients with diabetes type 1 or diabetes type 2 should have an HbA1c of 7.0 or less
30 per cent reduction in the mortality of patients with CHD in three years

What’s happening locally?

Practices involved in the program have found it very useful to meet with the other participating practices, both in formal learning workshops, and in informal interactive sessions over a meal, to share ideas and resources, and to problem solve.

As part of the process, practices review their communication strategies across the practice team. Some have established routine team meetings for the very first time. Others have adapted electronic messaging systems, or practice bulletins.

A big focus of the program has been data cleansing, including inactivation of old files, deceasing policies and procedures, as well as correct recording of clinical measures (in a searchable repository). C lean data means clean recall lists. Correct recording can helps practices to be able to identify the real ‘sickies’, and assists the practice during the accreditation process.

Some Examples of changes implemented in our Practices include:

Both Lara Medical Centre and You Yangs Medical Centre have started ‘Quick Solutions Clinic to take pressure off routine appointments

Surfcoast Medical Centre has set up a nurse led diabetes clinic
Drysdale Village has improved their diabetes SIP claims by 20% to 45%
Park St has embedded a triage system, improving allocation of appropriate appointments
East Geelong Medical Centre has developed a hand held diabetes record
Drysdale Clinic developed contingency plans to cope with GP maternity/ annual leave
Kunatjarra has initiated use of an encounter slip reminding patients of their allocated time
St Leonards have increased recordings of BP in the previous 12 months for diabetics from 73% to 98%
Corio Medical Clinic has increased the % of diabetics with a BP of <= 130/80 from 24% to 30%
Karuna-Maya Medicine tree has increased the % of diabetics with an HbA1c of <=7 from 31% to 51%
Newtown developed a patient brochure to educate patients on what the practice offers, what the practice nurse offers, and what to book a long appointment for.
Highton Clinic recently demonstrated to their accreditors an improved non recordings of allergies and smoking over the course of the program from 25.9% and 43.8% respectively to a very low 3.3% and 6.1% at programs end

And much much more………………

Across a range of clinical measures our practices have improved remarkably. This data is for our State Wave of the Collaboratives which began in September 2009 and finishes in February 2011.

Tracey

tracey2

Updates/latest developments

Twenty of our local practices are now involved in the APCC program in a mix of state and local waves. One practice has completed the 18 month commitment, but is continuing to submit data to the Improvement foundation web portal, in order to keep track of progress against program clinical targets.

Currently a pilot program with 2 new topic areas, COPD and Better Self Management of Chronic Disease, is underway. At this stage there is no information about the likelihood of this new topic becoming available to practices in our Division.

A ‘Closing the Gap’ wave of the program is also underway, aimed at non indigenous health services improving their recording of ATSI status and improving a range of clinical targets among their ATSI patient population. At this stage our Division is not involved in this wave of the program.