A report today released by the AIHW sets out the gold standard
for general practice reporting on primary health care.
The report, Review and evaluation of Australian information
about primary health care; a focus on general practice, finds
that ideally, general practice data should link every prescription,
procedure, test or other treatment option to a diagnosis or symptom
pattern, and, over time, to overall outcomes for the patient.
The report highlights important ownership, privacy, consent,
security and other legal issues that need to be tackled before
national electronic collection of general practice data could get
under way.
It also shows the need for early common ground on standards,
protocols and infrastructure-internationally these have been the
keys to success with electronic patient records.
'The low take-up so far of electronic clinical record-keeping in
Australian GP surgeries is a challenge, but GP groups say they are
willing to participate-as long as they can see that the data will
be useful in improving government policy or the health of their
patients', Ms Dixon said.
'The report advocates building on what's currently available
while moving to full national electronic data collection in general
practice. This will be a complex process and will take some time
and considerable resources'.
'But it's also important that other non-clinical but still very
useful information continues to be collected into the future that
puts primary health care services in context-particularly data
about the primary care workforce and patient satisfaction.'
'Although primary health care is the cornerstone of the health
care system, as a nation we don't have a comprehensive picture of
the outcomes of care provided in general practice' said report
co-author Tracy Dixon.
'It's not that we don't have any information-there are several
Australian data collections relevant to general practice.'
'But there are gaps and limitations in what we know, and this
makes it more difficult for governments, doctors and the community
to build a better health system'.
'For example there is little information available on overall
quality of services'.
'And we don't know if some parts of Australia are doing better
than others in terms of access to treatment and better health for
patients.'
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Further information: Tracy Dixon, tel. 6244
1103 mob. 0407 915 851
For media copies of the report: Publications
Officer, AIHW, tel. (02) 6244 1032.
Availability: Check the AIHW Publications area
for the availability of Review and evaluation of
Australian information about primary health care; a focus on
general practice.