Digital Tools
In early 2023, our digital health team commenced My Health Record awareness among Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACFs), successfully engaged 92% of Western Sydney facilities with over one-third of our 62 RACFs now advancing through the registration phase of My Health Record. Across the primary health sector, we have a reported total of 131 specialists who are registered with My Health Record in Western Sydney.
This year we also introduced Provider Connect Australia (PCA), a free service operated by the Australian Digital Health Agency to connect health organisations to their business partners to streamline updates of the services they provide and the practitioners providing them.
HealthPathways
HealthPathways, in partnership with the Western Sydney Local Health District and Sydney Children’s Hospitals, has now been providing health professionals with localised health management and referral pathways for over ten years.
GoShare
We partner with GoShare, a customisable information distribution platform, to allow health professionals in Western Sydney to share free, individualised health resources with their patients. This includes videos, flyers, infographics and stories from other people going through similar experiences.
29,313
GoShare bundles sent
96%
of survey respondents found the bundles helpful or very helpful
703
Registered GoShare Users
Data Excellence
This year, we were proud to celebrate three of our general practices reaching the finals of the PENCS awards. Rosedale Medical Practice won the Data-Driven Clinical Excellence Award by using CAT PIPQI and Lumos reporting to increase the HbA1c records for patients with diabetes from 50% to 80%. Lejeune Family Medical Practice won the Digital Innovation Award by increasing the number of Healthy Heart Checks undertaken at their practice by 25% by using Heart Bug and Topbar to flag and recall patients as part of the Cardiology in Community Program.
Digital Intelligence Capability program
In collaboration with the Western Australia Primary Health Alliance (WAPHA), WentWest is leading a national PHN program that will strengthen the governance of primary care datasets and provide the opportunity for PHNs to more effectively interrogate that data to learn more about the health of Australians, which in turn, will support the delivery of better primary health care. In this inaugural year, we have focused on creating the building blocks for using the data safely, securely, and effectively, and includes the Digital Intelligence Capability Framework, an Operating Model for putting the framework into practice across PHNs and projects, defining and building a PHN Operational GP dataset, and launching a Community of Practice for PHNs on their ISO27001 Information Security Management certification journey.
PaRIS
This year, the results of our involvement in the international Patient Reported Indicator Survey (PaRIS) project were finalised. Our results, along with 19 other countries, will help create a standardised methodology and data set to compare chronic health outcomes globally and build systems that are more patient-centred. Through PaRIS, we found that in Western Sydney:
77%
of patients found the care they received to be excellent or very good
80%
of patients recorded moderate or higher ratings of how well their GP provided person-centred care*.
98%
agreed that the health care professional explained things in a way that was easy to understand
Patients who recorded higher person-centred scores were more likely to report higher confidence in managing their own health and wellbeing (68%) than other patients (42%).
- Very High (30-25) 24%
- High (24.75-20) 30%
- Moderate (19.5-15) 26%
- Low (14.5-10) 14%
- Very Low (9-5) 6%
Reference:
- * Patients completed the P3CEQ, an 11-item measure designed to assess aspects of patient related care, including communication and shared-decision making. Higher scores represent better experiences of person-centred care.