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January 2002 | |
CONTENTS
After Hours Primary Medical Care Program
GP Education & Training
GPs and elective surgery
Privacy
Validation of GPR
Royal Children's Hospital Website for GPs
Pharmacy – Domiciliary Medication Management Review (DMMR) Scheme Update
PBS reforms
Coming Events - January
After Hours Primary Medical Care Program
As announced in our December newsletter, GPDV has been pleased to welcome Nicole Petterson in the role of After Hours Program Officer. Although relatively new to the administrative side of the area, she has clinical experience working in emergency departments and working for a medical deputising service. This has given her an understanding of some of the issues surrounding service provision but as local issues will obviously vary, she is looking forward to getting a feel for the issues in each division.
Over the next 12 months Nicole will be doing an audit of service provision and utilisation as well at looking at the issues surrounding after hours primary medical care. The GPDV project will work alongside the projects that have seeding grants, current after hours service providers and divisions with an interest in after hours medical care.
Nicole will be in contact with divisions and service providers over the next couple of months but feel free to contact her on n.petterson@gpdv.com.au if you have issues that you would like to raise in the mean time.
Victorian Forum on regionalisation
On 12 December GPDV had a meeting with Dr Bill Coote, CEO of GPET, to discuss some of the concerns of Victorian divisions about the process of regionalisation of GP education and training. The meeting was very productive and will be followed by a Forum specifically for Victorian divisions in Melbourne on 14 February. Dr Coote will be present to discuss directly with divisions GPET's proposed approach to regionalisation, including the consortia classified as "developmental", and other issues in GP education.
Dr Coote pointed out that, although the regionalisation of registrar education was the current focus of attention, there are other important educational issues for GPET to address, including the better integration of all components GP education, and, of particular interest to divisions, the development of CME into a more effective educational tool.
Details of the forum on 14 February will be forwarded to your division.
GPDV project nears completion
Bob Burgell, the consultant working on the GPDV project to examine the role of GPDV in GP education, is finalising his report, which is expected to be presented to the board this month. Bob has consulted extensively with divisions and other stakeholders and has collected a wealth of information about divisions' activities in GP education and their views on how GPDV can help divisions in the development of their educational programs. The information has already been valuable in our discussions with Bill Coote of GPET and we expect that the recommendations of the final report will form the basis for effective work with divisions.
At the GPDV board meeting on 7 December members heard a presentation by Dr Terry Ahern (NWMelb Div) on issues in elective surgery. Terry, who is GPDV's metropolitan representative on the DHS Advisory Committee on Access to elective Surgery (the rural rep is Dr Norman Castle of Stawell), discussed issues that he suggested should be raised with DHS in order to ensure that elective surgery services are most effectively delivered. A summary of the issues discussed will be circulated to divisions and placed on GPDV's website.
The following notice is provided in order to comply with the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000.
GPDV has developed a database containing the following information:
Title, Name, Position title, Organisation, Address, telephone, fax and email.
This database is used for the purpose of distributing this newsletter, the quarterly GPDV Forum Report Summaries, and notices about our annual conferences. The information contained in it is not disclosed to any other parties, and is held on our main server which is firewall protected.
Should you wish to no longer receive this newsletter, the Forum reports, or future notices about our conferences, please contact the database manager: Katie Fitzgerald either by email on k.fitzgerald@gpdv.com.au, or by phone on (03) 9341 5200. In addition, if you find that the address used on the envelope that contained this newsletter was incorrect, or would simply like to see the full information we have for you, please contact Katie.
GPDV has developed a Privacy Policy which will be available on our website shortly.
GPDV's General Practitioner Register (GPR) contains contact information for 4687 Victorian GPs and is Victoria's most complete and up-to-date source of this information.
The goal of the GPR is to improve the flow of patient information to GPs from hospitals where their patients are receiving treatment, but it is also useful to divisions in updating their own member databases. For example, the GPR can notify divisions about GPs who have recently arrived in their area and would like to become members of the division.
The GPR can only be used by hospitals to contact GPs about patients, and is not available to any other organisations or for promotional/commercial activities. A total of 54 Victorian hospitals have so far registered to use the GPR.
The original data was supplied by divisions and there is an ongoing process of checking and updating the information contained in the GPR. This occurs when divisions notify GPDV of new or amended contact details for their members or when hospitals notify us about GPs who are not on the register yet. This process has enabled GPDV to check and/or update the contact details for 1800 GPs since July 2001.
To check and update the remaining information in the Register, GPDV is now individually contacting GPs at their practices and asking them to check and amend the contact information we have for them. This validation process is expected to take until late April 2002 and will guarantee that the information in the database is accurate.
Royal Children's Hospital Website for GPs
The Royal Children's Hospital now has a GP webpage. This site provides easy access for GPs to information about:
Hotlink to:
RCH Clinical Practice Guidelines
DHS funded the publication of these guidelines on the web to
facilitate widespread dissemination of paediatric guidelines to
GPs.
It has an easy to remember url:
www.RCH4GPs.org
Any feedback about the site, or suggestions for content or links, would be very welcome.
Contact: Dr Claire Harris
Director, RCH GP Liaison
Research and Education Unit
Phone: 03 9345 6985
Email: harrisc@cryptic.rch.unimelb.edu.au
Pharmacy – Domiciliary Medication Management Review (DMMR) Scheme Update
MMR State Facilitator Appointed
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia (Victorian Branch) has announced the appointment of Mr Mel Blanchford as the Victorian State Facilitator for the MMR Facilitator Scheme. Mel is a pharmacist who is currently the Victorian Manager of Pharmacy Self Care. Previously, he worked as a community pharmacist and was president of the Pharmacy Board of Victoria. He will start at the Guild on the 18th February. GPDV will be assisting Mel during his initial contact with divisions.
Mel's role will be to provide support and guidance to MMR facilitators in Victorian divisions. On-going DMMR policy and direction at the national level will come through the National Management Group (NMG), which will consist of representatives from the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) and the ADGP.
ADGP Manager To Visit Divisions
Michael Janssen, the ADGP's National Manager for the MMR Facilitator Scheme, will be available on 29 & 30 January and 1 February to meet with the staff and/or boards of any division who would find such a visit useful.
To express your interest and
arrange a date and time, please contact
Peter Larter, GPDV
Tel: (03) 9341 5221
Michael Janssen, ADGP
Tel: (02) 6251 3380.
PBS reforms are being implemented gradually in a staged process across the State. Not all hospitals are participating straight away. Only the hospitals below are participating in the reforms from 14 January 2002.
Other hospitals will come on
gradually.
The Pharmaceutical Reform Implementation Working Group will have
oversight over these reforms. For more information see the
website at www.health.vic.gov.au/pbsreform or phone (03) 9616 8673 for a brochure.
Tues 29
Vic Metro Divs Teleconference
These teleconferences are intended to increase the direct
contact between the boards of divisions and the boards of ADGP
& GPDV.
Contact: Penny Handley, (03) 9341 5216
(p.handley@gpdv.com.au)
Wed 30
Vic Rural Divs Teleconference
Contact: Penny Handley, (03) 9341 5216
(p.handley@gpdv.com.au)