Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement Measures: annual data update 2024–25

Introduction

An accessible and high-quality primary care sector is integral to Australia’s health care system. General practitioners (GPs) are the first point of contact for most Australians seeking health care (RACGP 2020b). In 2023–24, 84.4% of the population consulted GPs, highlighting their key role in health care delivery (AIHW 2025c). GPs continue to be the most common health professionals seen in Australia (ABS 2024b). In 2023–24, nationally, there were 163.5 million GP attendances claimed through Medicare, with a Level B consultation (lasting less than 20 minutes) the most common type of attendance (AIHW 2025c).

The Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Quality Improvement (QI) Incentive is a payment to general practices for activities that support continuous data-driven quality improvement in patient outcomes and the delivery of best-practice care. General practices enrolled in the PIPQI Incentive commit to implementing continuous quality improvement activities that support them in their role of managing their patients’ health. They also commit to submitting nationally consistent, de-identified general practice data, against 10 key Improvement Measures that contribute to local, regional and national health outcomes (Department of Health 2020a).

The improvement measures are intended to support a regional and national understanding of chronic disease management in areas of high need and are not designed to be prevalence measures, assess individual general practices, or assess general practitioner performance. There are no set targets for these improvement measures.

The ten measures are:

• Proportion of regular clients with diabetes with a current HbA1c result; QIM 1
• Proportion of regular clients with a smoking status; QIM 2
• Proportion of regular clients with a height and weight measurement record, and a derived BMI result; QIM 3
• Proportion of regular clients aged 65 and over who were immunised against influenza; QIM 4
• Proportion of regular clients with diabetes who were immunised against influenza; QIM 5
• Proportion of regular clients with COPD who were immunised against influenza; QIM 6
• Proportion of regular clients with an alcohol consumption status; QIM 7
• Proportion of regular clients with the necessary risk factors recorded to enable CVD risk assessment; QIM 8
• Proportion of female regular clients with an up-to-date cervical screening; QIM 9
• Proportion of regular clients with diabetes with blood pressure recorded; QIM 10

Purpose of the report

This is an annual data update on the 10 Quality Improvement Measures (QIMs). This report aims to provide nationally consistent, comparable data against specified measures that contribute to the assessment of needs, and to the improvement of regional and national health outcomes. These data, shared at the community level, and collected through the PIPQI Incentive, have the potential to inform primary health care providers on where care and services may be improved for clients, and within a population. For example, this report may be used to understand what proportion of a population within a region may benefit from preventative measures to ensure effective management of a specified chronic disease, such as diabetes. This can help delay progression of the condition, improve quality of life, increase life expectancy and decrease the need for high-cost interventions.

The PIP Eligible Data Set

Each PHN collated and aggregated PIPQI data extracts from general practices, in accordance with the definitions of the 10 QIMs, from clients who visited a practice 3 or more times in the 2 years prior to the date of data extraction and whose service events were eligible for an MBS rebate.  

The health data ecosystem relies on high quality ‘electronic health records’ (EHRs) that play a crucial role in improving the provision of health care services and patient outcomes (AIHW 2024g). In Australia, general practices use Clinical Information Systems (CISs) and extraction tools (ETs) developed by different software providers to manage patient EHRs, and to support and enhance clinical decision-making. If the data contained in EHRs are robust and of sufficient quality, clinicians can use data to enhance patient outcomes and improve quality of care (RACGP 2025). Figure 1 shows that the most commonly used CISs were Best Practice (72.1%) and MedicalDirector (24.8%, including MD Clinical/Insights and Helix combined), followed by other software providers combined (3.1%). Between July 2024 and July 2025, the number and proportion of PIPQI data submitting practices using Best Practice software increased from 4,135 (69.1%) to 4,399 (72.1%).

Figure 1: Proportion of PIPQI practices, by Clinical Information System software provider, July 2025

Three PHNs have now started using the new PenCS ‘PAT’ tool instead of ‘PATCAT’ to summarise data extracted by PIPQI practices. With the uptake of this fourth variant of an extraction tool, we continue to observe increasing diversity in the PIPQI data files submitted to the AIHW. There were also 13 unique CISs used by practices in July 2025. Each of these CISs, in combination with the tool used to extract data from the CIS, introduces a new interpretation of the PIPQI technical specifications and inconsistencies in the data outputs – Please refer to the Technical notes for further detail on PIPQI data quality. The total number of data submitting practices this reporting period was similar to the previous year, with an increase in the proportion of practices relying on direct extraction (from 5,565, 92.9%, to 5,689, 93.2%) and a decrease of 1.9% (from 423 to 415) in the number of practices that submitted data as ‘JSON files’ (Figure 2, see Technical notes – PIP Eligible Data Set). We expect further diversification in the PIPQI data files as PHNs and practices change the tools they use to prepare and submit these data over time.

Figure 2: Proportion of PIPQI practices, by PHN and data submission pathway, July 2025

In July 2025, there were 6,104 practices that submitted PIPQI data. Of these, 7 data submissions across 5 PHNs that were generated by an extraction tool were excluded for reporting purposes due to technical issues (out of 5,689 practices submitting directly extracted data). Operating outside of extraction tools, there were also 402 out of 415 ‘JSON files’ (see Technical notes – PIP Eligible Data Set) submitted that were excluded for reporting purposes due to ongoing data quality issues affecting multiple QIMs. Of the 402 JSON files with data quality issues, 286 were from practices using Best Practice, 74 were using MedicalDirector, and 42 were using other CIS types combined. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) continues to engage with software providers to collaboratively resolve data quality issues in the latest versions of their software products. As a result, 13 JSON files across 8 PHNs that were generated using the latest versions of coding with corrections to these data quality issues were included for reporting (Figure 3). This number is expected to increase over time as practices update their software to the latest versions to correct known data quality issues.

Figure 3: Proportion of PIPQI practices, by submission pathway and Clinical Information System used, July 2025

There are 31 PHNs that cover the whole of Australia and, in determining boundaries, a number of factors were taken into account, including diverse population size and future projected population growth, LHN alignment, State and Territory borders, patient flows and administrative efficiencies (Department of Health and Aged Care 2023b). PHNs vary considerably in geographical size and residential population at a community level (Department of Health 2021), with the number of regular clients increasing with the number of submitting practices (Figure 4), reflecting the underlying estimated regional populations (Figure 5), noting that PHNs tailor services to the complex needs of regional communities and surrounding areas.

Figure 4: PIPQI data submitting practices and regular clients aged 15 years and over, by PHN and by extraction tool, July 2025