The National Prescribing Service will run on one-day seminar for GPs on Saturday 19 October at the Royal Victorian Ear and Eye Hospital in Melbourne. The seminar is entitled "The Leading Edge - New Drug Therapy Decision Making" and will feature short, sharp 10-15 minute presentations by experts in clinical therapeutics, with plenty of time for questions.

The Victorian seminar, to be chaired by John McEncroe, Richard Abbott, and Peter Roush, follows on the tail of successful seminars on the same theme in Sydney and Brisbane. The agenda and registration form will be available shortly on the GPDV website under "What�s New". The cost will be $130 for early bird registration, and $160 for normal registration, including GST, and has been approved by the RACGP for 12 CPD points for attendees.

The RACGP is planning to distribute its Handbook for the management of health information in private medical practice in late September. It has been developed by the RACGP in collaboration with the Committee of Presidents of Medical Colleges and the General Practice Computing Group; and organisations including the AMA and ADGP have commented on drafts.

The handbook draws on the RACGP Code of Practice for the Management of Health Information in General Practice, 1993; the Commonwealth Privacy Act 1988; the NHMRC Guidelines under section 95A of the Act; the Victoria, NSW and ACT legislation; and the NHMRC National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans.

The authors have taken a �best practice� approach to the management of health information based on professionally accepted privacy, confidentiality and research ethics standards. As a result, in some areas, it is both more explicit and more stringent than any current legislation. Final changes are currently being made to the handbook.

• minimum procedures that practices should establish and recommended additional procedures; and
• Supplement for Victorian medical practitioners.

The 3-page supplement was prepared by the Victorian Health Services Commissioner and highlights where the requirements of the Victorian Health Records Act 2001 may differ from what is stated elsewhere in the handbook. We understand that this supplement will not be included in the final version that will be circulated to practices and divisions across Australia. The pre-publication version can be downloaded at www.racgp.org.au/. Go to �Your Practice� then Privacy.

GPDV is pleased to welcome three new support staff

Eliza Sanneman as our Administration officer for Events Management to replace Natasha Gray when she leaves for Ghana in October. Eliza�s previous experience with events management bodes well for the continuing success of our events.

Danielle Stephenson as our new receptionist in place of Katie Fitzgerald who has been promoted to the position of Admin Officer assisting with GPDV�s finances and GPDV resource materials.

Diane Craig as Admin Officer for PHC RED and Information Systems

The Victorian Primary Health Care RED Partnership, as part of the DoHA funded PHC RED Strategy, is committed to building capacity and expertise in primary health care research.

The Partnership is delighted to announce that it received a total of 17 applications from primary health care providers for the recent 2002 PHC RED Fellowships funding round that closed on 4 July 2002. Congratulations to the 8 recipients of PHC RED Fellowship funding.

GPII August stats show that the top three divisions in Australia are in Victoria. They are (with immunisation coverage % rates)

Otway (93.2), Westvic (93.1), Border (92.9). The greatest gain over the last 12 months in Victoria was Western Melbourne's 3.1%.

Data released by the HIC indicates a continuing increase in the uptake by GPs of MBS Item no. 900 � payment for the completion of Home Medicines Reviews (formerly Domiciliary Medication Management Reviews). For the period 1 Oct 2001 to 30 June 2002, 6,451 items were claimed, including 1,225 (or 19%) in Victoria. The DHA/HIC estimates that 4% of "active GPs" have now had a Medicare claim for Item no. 900, up from 2.8% at March 31. The most recent figures show that 58% of pharmacies in Australia are now HIC-approved HMR service providers, up from 42% at 31 May.

The initiative is underpinned by the MMR Facilitator Scheme, which involves the employment of a Facilitator in or across divisions of general practice who will work with both GPs and pharmacists to provide operational support at the local divisional level. Facilitators are usually pharmacists, though other health professionals can be considered by divisions in consultation with state Guild branches if a suitably qualified pharmacist cannot be found.

Facilitators are funded to provide support, advice, education and networking opportunities to both GPs and pharmacists in their areas in order to ensure the smooth implementation of the program. 25 out of the 30 Victorian divisions have employed an MMR facilitator to date, or will do so in the near future.

For more information, contact your local division or Mel Blachford at the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (Victorian Branch) on (03) 9810 9999 or mel.blachford@guild.org.au. Alternatively, you can access the HIC HMR site at http://www.hic.gov.au/prof/  under "Pharm Agreement".

A new campaign to assist pharmacists manage the ongoing pseudoephedrine problem has been launched this month. The campaign is the result of a collaboration between the DHS, the Victorian Police, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (Victorian Branch), the Pharmacy Board of Victoria, and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (Victorian Branch).

The group has spent the last six months collaborating in the development of policies that aim to limit the diversion of solid dose pseudoephedrine containing medicines for illicit manufacture of methylamphetamine, without causing undue inconvenience to pharmacists or the genuine purchaser.

As part of the campaign, two posters have been produced for pharmacies: one for display in the dispensary, the other for open display in the retail area. The posters are intended to assist pharmacists and their staff to deal with requests for pseudoephedrine-containing medicines. These posters were distributed to all pharmacies throughout Victoria in August.

Thurs 12 Sept (Rydges Carlton)

Fri 13 Sept (Rydges Carlton)

Fri 13 Sept (Downtowner on Lygon)

Sat 19 Oct (Royal Vic Eye & Ear Hospital)

Victorian divisions maintain a strong commitment to information management (IM) and most have dedicated staff members to support it, despite the withdrawal of information technology (IT)-specific Commonwealth funding. But the direction of IM strategy is unclear for many divisions, and maintaining existing levels of IT support to practices is an increasing challenge.

These are among the findings of a survey of IM/IT support activities in Victorian divisions by GPDV in July, presented to division boards and CEOs at the GPDV Forum on 18 August. Other points of interest:

• All divisions surveyed are providing IM support for Chronic Disease Initiatives, through practice visits, workshops, publications, newsletters or web sites.
• Most divisions are educating practices about the applications and value of electronic messaging using public key encryption, but the rate of support for sign-up and technical support is significantly less, suggesting a shortage of suitable resources from HIC and HeSA.
• Despite divisions� best efforts to encourage GPs to use medical software for comprehensive health information management, only 30% (approximately) of Victorian GPs are doing this.
• In relation to technical support, divisions� priorities and objectives don�t match the services they provide. 50% of divisions felt it was important for GPs to receive free technical support, but 80% are providing such support free of charge.
• Fewer than 20% of divisions establish service level agreements with practices to which they provide technical support. This is of concern because failure to establish limits in terms of the amount and type of service provided might leave divisions open to legal action if they fail to provide essential support to practices that have come to expect it.

GPDV will release the findings of the survey in a report to participating divisions in September. For more information, contact Chris Miller, Health Informatics Consultant GPDV: c.miller@gpdv.com.au.