A Perth northern suburbs general practice is one of a growing number of clinics using a data tool to improve patient care and outcomes, including real-time medication alerts and care prompts.
The clinical decision support and data extraction tool known as Primary Sense was developed and now owned and operated by Primary Health Networks and is available free of charge to general practices. It is currently used by 10 out of 31 PHNs nationally and accessed by almost 5000 GPs from over 1500 practices, supporting nearly 10 million patients.
WA Primary Health Alliance practice quality improvement coach Joe Staniszewski has helped the Wangara Medical Centre team to get the most out of the tool.
He said the practice was running Primary Sense reports on chronic lung disease and asthma patients to identify those who have not undergone specialist evaluation or diagnostic testing and recall them for follow-up appointments.
The Wangara medical centre’s practice manager Anna Teki was initially hesitant to use the tool, but after seeing how the reporting functions could support practice audits, realised how it would improve patient care.
“When we started using Primary Sense reports, we focused on running easy reports such as identifying duplicate patients, checking patients who would be eligible for cardiovascular services, and finding reports like missing PIP QI measures with patients booked in the next two weeks,” Ms Teki said.
She said the practice’s GPs were finding the patient care prompts and realtime medication alerts particularly helpful.