‘Wave 5’ Reaches 18-Month Milestone In May, participants of the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Chronic Disease Prevention and Self Management (CDPSM) wave reached their 18-month milestone. 84 health services participated in this wave of the APCC Program, which was the first to focus on these two topics as well as engaging patients as part of the Division teams. Over the past 18 months these health services have worked towards improving the health outcomes for more than 9,521 Australians living with COPD as well as improving prevention outcomes for those patients not currently diagnosed with a chronic disease. Improvements made by participating health services mean that approximately 1,627 more people are now recorded on participating health services’ COPD registers and 1,769 more people living with COPD now have a spirometry recorded. In the CDPSM topic a 70% improvement on baseline in the modifiable risk factors - self management recorded measure has been achieved. Congratulations to all CPMs and health services who have contributed to such positive outcomes. Wave 5 Participants take part in Vaccination Challenge In February, Northern Rivers General Practice Network started an initiative to encourage an increase in flu vaccinations within the community. In March, Tony Lembke, APCC Clinical Director, extended an invitation to participate in the fluvax challenge through the wave 5 mailing list, to encourage increased vaccinations of patients with COPD. Influenza Vaccine measure: Pneumococcal Vaccine Measure: So that health services involved in wave 5 could continue monitoring their progress and benchmark themselves against other participants throughout the vaccination challenge, the wave 5 facilities on the web portal were extended by an extra month. At the end of June, health services who continue to submit data will move from the COPD and CDPSM wave to a ‘general wave’ (labelled wave 000 on the web portal) Idea from the APCC: Improving Vaccination Rates Using SMS Reminders One health service involved in a local wave of the APCC Program came up with a good idea to recall patients on their diabetes register for their annual pneumonia vaccinations: • Diabetes reviews When new patients present at the health service they are asked for their mobile phone number and provide consent for the health service to use the SMS reminder system. Closing the Gap Success - Presentation in Canberra On Thursday 14 May, the Improvement Foundation (IF), together with General Practice Queensland (GPQ) and the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health Council (QAIHC) delivered a presentation in Canberra, ‘How a cross-sector partnership model is being used to Close the Gap in health inequalities’. The Honourable Warren Snowden MP, Member for Lingiari, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Minister for Indigenous Health and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Centenary of Anzac, opened the event, with 36 people in attendance including staff from the Department of Health and Ageing. Staff from all three organisations presented on the success of the Closing the Gap local waves, and discussed ideas for moving forward with this highly prominent health issue. Below (L-R): Katie Panaretto QAIHC, Jann Offer GPQ, Ann-Marie Liddy GPQ, Colin Frick IF, Matt Cooke CEO Nhulundu Health Service Wooribah, Selwyn Button QAIHC and Sheryl Lawton, Chair of the QAIHC Board and CEO of Charleville and Western Areas Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Community Health Ltd, at the Closing the Gap presentation in Canberra.
Harding Street Medical Centre Host Local MP and Mayor at Practice Visit On Thursday 21 April, Kelvin Thomson MP, Member for Wills and Oscar Yildiz JP, Mayor of Moreland, attended Harding Street Medical Centre to learn about their success in preventing diabetes within their community, through the APCC Program. CEO of the Northern Division of General Practice, Phillip Bain, facilitated the visit along with Dr Paul Day, GP and owner of Harding Street Medical Centre. The team at Harding Street Medical Centre were particularly excited to showcase their work in preventing diabetes, with the implementation of their ‘Preventative Health Clinic’. During the visit, Practice Nurse Michelle Cordes jumped at the chance to do a diabetes risk assessment on Mr Thomson, Mr Yildiz and Mr Bain, to highlight to them how useful and accurate the assessment is. Below: MP Kelvin Thompson, Mayor Oscar Yildiz and Division CEO Phillip Bain at the Harding Street Medical Centre visit.
Update to Wave 6 ‘Diabetes Prevention & Management Wave’ The APCC Diabetes Prevention and Management wave is being delivered to 70 health services under a new wave model consisting of two state learning workshops and four virtual workshops, across 18 months. A national workshop was held in Sydney on Saturday 5 March 2011, and the first stream of virtual workshops were held in the week commencing 16 May. In a first for the Improvement Foundation and the APCC Program, the virtual workshop has been converted to a podcast. Topics discussed include 'Who is in your team?', 'Barriers to making change' and 'Getting support from outside the health service'. The podcast is now available for download here. A PDF of the PowerPoint presentation has been saved to the portal and can be accessed by clicking this link. Learning workshop three will be delivered in another stream of virtual workshops, commencing the week of Monday 25 July. Web Based Reporting Tool Update The Improvement Foundation Consortium (IF and OBS) would like to thank all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services who participated in the recent web based reporting tool pilot and to all entrants who submitted artwork and name suggestions to identify a name and brand for this tool. Winners of these competitions will be announced soon. New Staff Welcomed at the Improvement Foundation The Improvement Foundation would like to welcome a number of new staff to its head office in Adelaide. Amy Markey has joined the Business Development and Learning team as Administration Support Officer, Rebekah Griffith has been employed as IF’s Receptionist. Two account clerks, Cassy Valodze and Sherrie Angwin have joined the finance team and the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) team also welcomes Sam Livingstone as ICT Support Officer. |
