Good appetite for Health Care Homes

QandA with David Menzies, Health Care Homes’ team leader, South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (SEMPHN)

 What’s your background?

“In a previous life I was a physical educator (exercise physiologist) in a private rehabilitation hospital. After this role I completed a short stint in occupational rehabilitation and then moved into primary health at a Division of General Practice working on the Sharing Health Care Initiative. At General Practice Victoria, I worked on chronic disease management and Close the Gap, and then on the COAG Healthy Communities Initiative with Fitness Australia.

“When I saw this role, I thought it would be a great opportunity to be involved in a major initiative in Australia’s primary health care."

What are your team doing at the moment?

“My team came on board in January and were able to build on some great preparatory work undertaken by Rashmi Venkatraman, one of SEMPHNs Provider Support Officers. We then had a good eight months to build up a rapport with practices. That’s been fundamental to our success.

“We are on the phone to practices daily and have a weekly schedule of practice visits.

“My two colleagues, Mary Reynolds and Leonie Tarrant have incredible on-the-ground experience as a practice nurse and practice manager of more than 20 years.

“Our approach to practices has been to take things step-by-step. We are constantly advising practices that this sort of change takes time and that they are not expected to enrol 20 patients on the first day.

“It is imperative to get all their systems and processes right. Get the risk stratification tool working, make sure they can register their patients on HPOS and then think about next steps and the model of care from that point.

“We’re also advising practices about the approach to the training modules. Some were feeling a bit overwhelmed and not knowing where to start."

Where are your practices at now?

“Some practices are just at the point where they are enrolling patients. Others are a little more advanced.  

“One practice has started to think about what comes next with the patients. For example, how patients identify themselves when they come into the practice, so that the practice team knows which workflows to put in place.

They are also looking at regular phone calls to those patients and monitoring them, so that if there is a change or deterioration, they are on to it immediately."

How many SEMPHN practices are taking part in Health Care Homes?

“Eight practices started on 1 October and at least another 16 will start on 1 December.

“There’s a strong appetite in our catchment for Health Care Homes. Practices are saying, ‘We are doing this well already. Why wouldn’t we try and formalise it?'

“Practice teams are interested in the potential to innovate with more extensive use of tele-health, phone calls, health coaching and other patient focused models of care.”

Below: SEMPHN staff at the Health Care Homes training in August 2017. From left Leonie Tarrant, Rashmi Venkatraman, David Menzies and Mary Reynolds.  

Earn CPD points with training modules

Staff at participating Health Care Homes who complete the training modules are able to claim continuing professional development (CPD) points from the following organisations:

• Australian Association of Practice Managers
• Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine
• Australian Practice Nurse Association
• Royal Australian College of General Practitioners

Modules 1-6 have been endorsed by these organisations, with endorsement for later modules pending.

When they reach the certificate tab for each module, learners can see the CPD point allocations for each organisation and the submissions process.

All participating Health Care Homes' practices are encouraged to contact their PHN Practice Facilitators and begin the training modules as soon as possible. Practices are expected to complete the training within the first year of Health Care Home services.

Health Care Homes in the news

• Health Care Homes won’t solve chronic disease: https://www.medicalobserver.com.au/professional-news/health-care-homes-wont-solve-chronic-disease-care
• Health Care Homes ‘helps more than just chronic patients': http://medicalrepublic.com.au/hch-model-helps-just-chronic-patients/11234
• Shifting the dial: 5 year productivity review: http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/productivity-review/report/productivity-review.pdf