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IF Improvement Award: Congratulations Montague Farm Medical Centre
“We are just a local practice striving to improve the quality of our patient care”, said Prashiba Thavarajadeva, Practice Manager of Montague Farm Medical Centre, after being announced as the Improvement Foundation (IF) Improvement Award winner. Prashiba was presented with the award by Colin Frick, IF’s CEO who said ‘it was inspiring to see their success and such a diverse range of improvements across the practice’.
The team at Montague Farm Medical Centre have worked together to devise effective ways to empower patients, increase productivity and decrease waiting times through their involvement in the Australian Primary Care Collaborative (APCC) Program and the eCollaborative – 21st Century Patient Care and Self-Management Wave.
Winning this award gives Prashiba the exciting opportunity to attend this year’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) 24th Annual National Forum in Orlando, Florida to learn from quality improvement experts from around the world.
The annual IF Improvement Award recognises excellence in quality improvement in primary healthcare, and nominations will be announced at the end of each year.
Click here to download Montague Farm Medical Centre’s award submission.
Dr Tony Lembke wins the Royal Australian College of General Practice GP of the Year Award 2012
IF congratulates Dr Tony Lembke of Alstonville Clinic, northern New South Wales, for being awarded the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ (RACGP) General Practitioner of the Year.
Dr Lembke is the APCC Program’s Clinical Director and the Clinical Chair for the eCollaboratives – 21st Century Patient Care and Self-Management Waves. IF considers Dr Lembke to be a deserving winner of this prestigious award.
Click here to read the RACGP’s Award announcement. What is qiConnect?
qiConnect is the name of the new IF web portal, which enables health professionals to easily navigate and ‘connect’ quickly and securely to a range of measures, quality improvement tools and resources.
qiConnect is a secure web portal accredited ‘In Confidence’ under the Department of Defence classification. This sophisticated system has the capability of providing all users with a single, fast and efficient way to electronically submit data and receive high-end automatically generated feedback reports, which facilitate the ability for users to track their improvement across a range of measures.
Participants in the APCC Program’s Diabetes Prevention and Management Wave and the second eCollaboratives Wave have now been registered to use qiConnect, enabling them to view enhanced improvement graphs, a more user-friendly Model for Improvement template and access a range of materials. This cutting edge technology better supports the work healthcare organisations are doing to improve their systems of care, resulting in better health outcomes for patients.
eCollaboratives Wave Discussion Board
Discussion boards are now available on qiConnect for eCollaborative participants. If you are participating in the second eCollaborative Wave you can click here to join the discussion board and continue conversations online with your peers from the workshops.
IF expects the eCollaborative discussion board on qiConnect will be a valuable tool, assisting practices and health services to improve the way they communicate, network and share learnings throughout the Wave. IF Conference Involvement
IF staff and program exemplars have been busy participating in a number of conferences over the past few months, providing the opportunity for IF to showcase the outstanding results that have been achieved through the delivery of key programs. The conferences IF have been involved in include: APCC Program Transitioning to the Australian Medicare Local Alliance
The Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for Health, announced at the Australian Medicare Local (AML) Alliance National Primary Health Care Conference that responsibility for the APCC Program will be transitioned to control of Medicare Locals through the AML Alliance, with IF continuing to deliver the Program. "The idea is that by entrenching the work of the Collaboratives as core business for Medicare Locals, we can make it a focus across the primary care system", says Ms Plibersek.
Mr Colin Frick, IF CEO said "We’re working with the AML Alliance to deliver the APCC Program and to spread use of the Program’s methodology across Medicare Locals and other service improvement initiatives.
Over the next three years the APCC Program is funded to engage 500 general practices through National Collaborative Waves. By working closely with Medicare Locals to build capacity and implement improvement programs using the APCC Program’s methods, this work will further build capacity for Medicare Locals both locally and nationally, and contribute to improving Australia’s primary healthcare system in a sustainable way". Diabetes Prevention and Management Wave
The APCC Diabetes Prevention and Management Wave 8 is well underway with 20 staff from 16 Medicare Locals attending Program Training on the 6th and 7th of December, in Gold Coast, QLD. Medicare Local support staff were provided with an overarching understanding of the Program and tips on how to support their participating health services. The curriculum also included training on how to interpret the core Program measures; apply the Model for Improvement and the importance of building a strong team foundation.
Click here to find out more about the Diabetes Prevention and Management Wave.
Medicare Local National Wave
In November IF recruited Medicare Locals to participate in the first of three Medicare Local National Waves. The first workshop was held in Melbourne in late November, with teams from 16 Medicare Locals across Australia in attendance. This Wave has built on the learning’s gained from delivery of the first Medicare Local National Wave in 2012.
IF has worked with the Australian Medicare Local Alliance to ensure this wave meets the priorities of Medicare Locals by increasing the capacity of Medicare Local staff to plan and implement quality improvement activities focused on chronic disease prevention and management. A key focus for the teams will be to develop and implement a Quality Improvement Plan that addresses a health priority in their regions, enabling participants to apply and embed the knowledge and skills acquired through the Wave.
Click here to find out more about the Medicare Local National Wave. eCollaborative - 21st Century Patient Care and Self-Management Wave
The first learning workshop for the second eCollaborative Wave was held on the 1st December at the Gold Coast. This workshop was attended by staff from 25 general practices,12 Aboriginal Medical Services and their respective support organisations.
The day got off to a great start with Luther Cora and his son Hezekiah of the Yugambeh language group delivering the traditional ‘welcome to country’, which included a didgeridoo solo.
A key theme for this workshop involved detailing the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR), benefits of using a PCEHR from a clinical and patient perspective, as well as guiding participants through the process of registering. The availability of other new technologies was discussed, with a focus on how the ‘e’ in eHealth can help to improve communication between all those involved in the care of a patient.
Participants also heard from a number of their colleagues that participated in the first eCollaborative Wave, who generously shared their experiences with engaging their teams and patients, tips for developing systems, and workflows to support establishing and using patient shared health summaries.
Click here to find out more about the eCollaborative Wave.
Pen Computer Systems Clinical Audit Tool (CAT) and Canning Tool Updates
IF recommends all users update their data extraction tools to ensure there are no issues uploading data to the new web portal, qiConnect.
Pen CAT users can check for updates by opening CAT, selecting the 'Tools' menu and then 'Check for updates'. CAT will close and check to see if an update is available. If a more recent update is available, this will be automatically installed by following the prompts.
Canning Tool users need version 4.11 or later before they can attempt an update. The Canning Tool v4.11 can be downloaded from their website. In the case where v4.11 is installed prior to the 6th of December, 2012 minor updates are required in order to upload to qiConnect. For more information please contact Ian Peters, Canning Division of General Practice Tel: (08) 9458 0505. IF Team News
Throughout 2012 the IF team has grown to 42 staff enabling the organisation to diversify its skills set and better meet needs of program participants and other stakeholders. Since the last newsletter, IF warmly welcomes the following team members:
We also welcome back Stacey Muchamore, Business Analyst, who has recently returned from maternity leave. Season’s Greetings from IF
The IF team wishes you and your families a safe and happy holiday season. We look forward to continuing to work with all of our clients and stakeholders in 2013, to improve services that benefit a range of communities. IF Holiday Closure
IF Office will be closed from Friday 21st of December and will re-open with limited staffing from Monday 7th January, 2013.
IF Helpdesk will be closed from Friday 21st December 2012 and will re-open on Monday 7th January, 2013. Tel: (08) 8422 7450.
OCHREStreams Help Desk will operate as usual; between 9am and 7pm (AEDT) Monday to Friday excluding national public holidays. Tel: 1800 627 820. Feedback
If you have any feedback on this newsletter or would like to make a suggestion for future newsletter content, please email newsletter@improve.org.au |
