WA Primary Health Alliance’s HealthPathways team is celebrating five years of working to improve primary health care and outcomes, providing GPs, practice nurses and other registered health professionals across WA with access to comprehensive, expert-reviewed, up to date clinical and referral information.
Since launching the HealthPathways WA website in 2015, the team has published more than 580 pathways and reviewed more than 180 pathways, ensuring Western Australians can be sure of getting the right assessment and the right treatment from the right health professional.
The importance of the platform was on full display during the COVID-19 outbreak, with 12 new COVID specific HealthPathways developed, leading to a 300 percent increase in sessions and page views within a few months.
HealthPathways WA Clinical Editor Dr Linda Kohler said that as the volume of information coming through during COVID-19 was significant and changing sometimes daily, it was vital that GPs had a single source of truth.
“We worked tirelessly to support GPs during COVID-19, by developing 12 specific Health Pathways in record time, sometimes updating the pathways several times a day,” she said.
“The topics ranged from mental health, to impacts on local services, telehealth, infection control and advance care planning. As a result, the site became an even more valuable resource for GPs in WA.”
As a provider of GP education in WA, the team also turned its talents to running virtual education, ensuring GPs could stay abreast of new information during the pandemic.
The team ran six GP education events with almost 200 GP participants and facilitated four collaborative multi-disciplinary working groups to support the development of new Health Pathways.
HealthPathways WA is just one of the ways WA Primary Health Alliance is working to continuously improve primary health care, ensuring it continually adapts to meet the health care needs of Western Australians, keeps people healthy, prevents disease and reduces demand for hospital services.