Username:

Password: 

Forgot Password

General Practice Data Quality Improvement

Quality data is the foundation of eHealth; of chronic disease management and prevention, and is vital for effective and efficient health planning and service delivery, leading to systematic care, appropriate and accurate transfer of patient information, and contributing to practice efficiency and viability.

Data are of high quality if they are fit for their intended uses in operations, decision making and planning.

A number of data quality frameworks, tools and supporting resources are outlined below. These tools can be used by general practice or by organisations supporting general practice to improve the quality of clinical data within general practice.

 

eHealth Support Officers Data Quality Resources

Assisting general practice with the improvement of clinical data quality is of a high priority for the eHealth Support Officers Program. As such eHealth Officers across the country have worked together to develop a framework for data quality and number of resources to assist practices with this activity.

 

General Practice Queensland Data Quality Guide

General Practice Queensland has developed a guide that can be used by Divisions of General Practice or by general practice themselves to assist with the improvement of clinical data quality.

The purpose of the Data Quality Guide is to improve the quality of clinical data being used within a general practice and the quality of data and information products that are used for planning, reporting and decision-making purposes across the health sector.  The data Quality Guide can help to facilitate the systematic assessment, improvement and documentation of data quality for all databases and registries that it is applied to. 

The guide and a number of supporting resources such as a list of available data quality software tools are available on the General Practice Queensland website.

 

Data in General Practice Resources

General Practice Victoria has collected information on a number of available data quality improvement tools that can be applied by general practice.

These tools include such things as the PEN Clinical Audit Tool (CAT) and the Practice Health Atlas. Information on these tools can be found on the General Practice Victoria website.

 

Purchasing guide for Clinical Software

The extent to which the software used in a general practice supports such data quality fundamentals as clinical coding has a significant impact on the quality of the clinical data within general practice. General Practice Victoria has developed a guide to assist general practice in choosing a clinical software product.

This resource can be found on the General Practice Victoria website.

 

Australian Primary Care Collaboratives (APCC)

Considered the most successful quality improvement initiative targeting general practice in Australia, the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives is underpinned by a focus on data collection, analysis and improvement.

The aim of the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives (APCC) is to support general practice in developing systematic and sustainable improvements in the quality of care they provide to their patients.

The APCC program is based on the Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) collaborative model for achieving breakthrough improvement, developed in 1994.

The breakthrough model recognises that rapid quality improvements are unlikely to occur using traditional didactic approaches to learning. Instead, it uses an action based approach incorporating workshops and activity periods over the 12 to 18 month program.

Collaborative programs are based on an identified gap between evidence and practice which have a significant effect on patient outcomes. An expert reference panel (ERP) is convened who develop the aims, measures and evidence based changes called ‘change principles’ for each group or ‘wave’ of practices participating.

A framework called The Model for Improvement is used to design and track changes in each practice. This method is based on four elements of successful process improvement: setting specific and measureable aims; collecting data that is tracked over time; identifying changes that will result in improvement; and a series of ‘testing’ cycles which build knowledge on how to effectively change systems and processes in individual practices.

Improvement is measured via monthly data submission which generates longitudinal graphs for each practice. These graphs show aggregated data at three levels - practice, division and at a National, State or local level depending on the nature of the Wave. This allows practices and divisions to compare their progress against the wider group who are also working towards the same overall aims. Practice data is confidential and as such, only practcies can see their data. National data is available on the APCC website.

Benefits of a collaborative approach

The collaborative method brings together a number of medical practices to work and learn together.  By sharing ideas and building on each other’s accumulated knowledge they can each more rapidly make significant and sustainable improvements in their own organisation.

Division staff, who participate in the collaboratives, tend to find they gain a greater understanding of practice dynamics, the areas in which practices need assistance, and a deeper appreciation of where Division programs can contribute to improved patient outcomes.

APCC Divisions are given a structure which enables the fundamental practice improvements required to effectively roll out Division programs. Data collection, which measures practice wide improvements, can be used to track practice progress, compare practices against Division averages, and compare Division averages against State or National averages.