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December 2001 | |
CONTENTS
Christmas Greeting
Holiday Closure
New Staff
Review of the divisions' funding formula
GPDV Board
HARP Reference Group meets
New Name for the Department
Two EPC Projects
Divisions in Discharge Demonstration Projects
After-hours services
Workshop on Collaboration to Reduce Hospital Demand
MH Forum
On behalf of the board and staff of GPDV I wish all Victorian divisions, their members and staff, and all readers of this newsletter a very Merry Christmas, a refreshing holiday and a happy and successful New Year.
The year 2001 has been a busy and
productive year for GPDV, including the success of the conference
held in March with over 400 participants, and speakers from
around the world. In the latter part of the year we underwent an
internal restructure to reflect the new focus of GPDV with the
implementation of the strategic plan for the next triennium
2001-2004. It is shaping up to be an exciting period for GPDV,
building on the strengths of our first three years.
With best wishes, John McEncroe, Chair
GPDV will be closed for the Christmas break from noon on Friday 21 December, and will re-open on Wednesday 2 January 2002.
GPDV is pleased to welcome Peter Larter and Nicole Petterson to our team as the Project Officer and the Program Officer for the Victorian After Hours Program, respectively.
Peter brings a range of skills including a postgraduate diploma of Health Economics and Evaluation and employment experience within the Divisions Program. His recent position in the GP Primary Care Integration Section of the General Practice Branch of the Commonwealth Department of Health & Aging in Canberra, provides him with sound background into the issues facing general practice. The role of Project Officer is to enable GPDV to address priority issues as they arise, which currently includes focussing on Pharmacy, and the role of Nurses in general practice (Nurse Practitioners and Practice Nurses).
Nicole brings many skills to her role as the Program Officer for the Victorian After Hours Program, including work as a GP and as a locum. This experience will greatly assist her in her role of increasing the involvement of divisions and GPs in the provision of after-hours medical services.
Review of the divisions' funding formula
The Divisions Standing Committee of the General Practice Partnership Advisory Council (GPPAC) is conducting a review of the formula by which DH&A calculates the funding grants for divisions. Its discussion paper raises a number of possible changes to the formula and seeks comment from stakeholders. Among the issues raised are
As the closing date proposed for responses to the discussion paper is 4 January, giving 14 working days for comment, GPDV has joined with other SBOs and ADGP in attempting to have the deadline extended to give a more reasonable length of time for comment on this critical issue for divisions.
Your division has a copy of the discussion paper.
At the first meeting of the GPDV board, following the recent board election at which the sitting board members were re-elected, the board re-elected John McEncroe (Inner East) as Chair, Nola Maxfield (South Gippsland) as Deputy, and Chris Pearce (North East Vic) as Treasurer.
Minister Thwaites has approved the establishment of a high-level Reference Group to advise DHS on the implementation of the Hospital Admission Risk Program (HARP). HARP is part of the DHS Hospital Demand Strategy, which is developing strategies to tackle the problems of access to hospital services. HARP is funded by DHS at $150 million over four years (17, 33, 50, 50), to encourage measures to help prevent hospital admissions and emergency dept presentations. GPDV will be represented on the Reference Group by John McEncroe.
For more information contact Lenora Lippmann at GPDV.
As well as a change of minister, with the appointment of Victorian Senator Kay Patterson as Minister for Health, the department will also have a name change. The former Department of Health and Aged Care will be known until the next name change as the Department of Health and Ageing.
GPDV has appointed consultants to manage two projects arising from the EPC Program in Victoria.
Residential Care
Shane Thomas & Associates will conduct a project to examine issues affecting the use of the new EPC items in residential care facilities and to recommend possible steps to increase their uptake, which at present is very low. The key outcome that is expected from this project is to achieve optimum use of EPC residential care items by GPs in Victoria, and as a consequence increased co-ordination of care for people in residential care facilities.
Prof Shane Thomas and Dr Colette Browning will begin the project immediately and will be interviewing owners and staff of residential care facilities and GPs who care for patients in them.
Evaluation
Jane Sims, Lucio Naccarella and Theonie Tacticos, of the Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne, will conduct an evaluation of components of the roll-out in Victoria of the Education & Support Program for the EPC items. In particular they will be assessing the effectiveness of the Train-the-Trainer model used in Victoria and the linkages and collaboration between programs and with other agencies that have resulted from the EPC Program. It will complement the work of the national evaluation of the EPC Program.
The consultants, who will start immediately, plan to interview briefly the GP trainers from all divisions and as many as is feasible of the GPs and others who were trained by them.
Divisions in Discharge Demonstration Projects
Nine Victorian divisions are involved in the four EPC discharge demonstration projects funded in Victoria by both DHS and DH&A to encourage the use of the EPC items for GP involvement in hospital discharge arrangements. Following the call for applications, which had to involve joint division/hospital submissions, the successful consortia are
This initiative, originally reported in our June newsletter, is a result of GPDV's ongoing work with DHS. We originally proposed a project to overcome the difficulties entailed in GP involvement in discharge planning, and negotiations over the past months have resulted in the proposal being accepted and expanded.
DH&A is keen to build on this Victorian initiative and is negotiating with all other Australian States to establish similar demonstration projects.
GPDV will have a coordinating role for the projects, to encourage the sharing of experiences and findings among them and to facilitate information sharing with the wider field. The contact person at GPDV will be Lenora Lippmann.
DH&AC held a workshop on 28/11 for all Victorian projects funded by their After-Hours Program. The Victorian projects funded are
| Seeding Grants | Included in project | |
| NE Valley Div | Austin & Repat Hospital | |
| Dandenong Div | ||
| Central Highlands Div | ||
| GP Education Consortium (GPEA) | Melb Locum Service | |
| Latrobe Community Health Service | CW Gipps Div | |
| Melbourne Health (RMH) | NW Melb Div | |
| North East Vic Div | ||
| Western Health | Western Div, Westgate Div | |
| Knox Div | ||
| Bendigo & District Div |
Infrastructure Grants
Goulburn Valley Div
Service Development Grants
Whitehorse Div
The presentations by the funded projects will be placed for information on the GPDV website when they are received.
Workshop on Collaboration to Reduce Hospital Demand
GPDV, in conjunction with the Victorian Healthcare Association, and with DHS sponsorship, presented a pre-conference session at the VHA annual conference on the integration of primary and acute care. We brought speakers from Rockhampton, Brisbane and Adelaide to present the results of projects funded by the National Demonstration Hospitals Program to demonstrate Acute/Primary integration. The main speaker was Caroline Gullery from Pegasus Independent Practitioners Association in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Pegasus approach shows that when GPs and patients decide what is needed to keep a person out of hospital - and have the resources to meet those needs - hospital demand can be substantially reduced.
The session was over-subscribed and brought together divisions, hospitals, community health services and DHS staff for a very interesting and useful discussion. The session ended with a presentation by Shane Solomon, Director of Policy & Strategic Projects in DHS, about the new Hospital Admission Risk Program (HARP) which will fund initiatives in Victoria aimed at preventing hospital presentations and admissions. Dr John McEncroe, Chair of GPDV, is a member of the HARP Reference Group, which will advise DHS on the implementation of the Program.
The presentations from the workshop are on the GPDV website www.gpdv.com.au - go to 'Noticeboard' and then 'GPDV/VHA workshop'.
GP Mental Health Training Forum on 30 November attracted more than 70 participants, including GPs, divisions' MH staff and 16 specialist staff from Area Mental Health Services, Primary Mental Health Teams and related agencies. The Forum showcased reports on six mental health training pilot projects funded under the MH Incentive Funding received from DH&AC in 1999. Nine divisions were involved in the six projects - Greater South Eastern, Inner Eastern, Central Bayside, Dandenong, Southcity, Knox, North East Valley, Otway, North East Victoria.
The day also brought together GPs, division staff, specialist mental health staff and policy makers from the DHS MH Branch to discuss possibilities for co-ordinated approaches to mental health training between divisions and Primary MH Teams. The final session on future directions for mental health training brought into clear view the possible links between the Commonwealth and State initiatives and the RACGP and GPDV roles in GP education.
For more details contact Anne Diamond on a.diamond@gpdv.com.au.