Pen CS General Practice eNewsletter
April eNews:

  • Are you PIP QI ready?
  • UNSW Adult Vaccine Research Program: Q&A with Dr Rob Menzies
  • Pen CS partners with Digital Health CRC
  • Share Your View: National Primary Health Care Data Asset
  • App of the Month: MBS App
  • Pen CS Webinar: Medicare reports and prompts at point of care
  • Pen CS Webinar: Checking basic indicators for Chronic Disease
  • Watch Previous Webinars
  • Topbar Tip of the Month: How to access CPD Doctorportal Learning App
Practice Incentives Program
Quality Improvement (PIP QI)

Are you PIP QI ready?
Pen CS presents a multi-platform, integrated solution, for all healthcare providers, general practices and PHNs participating in the upcoming PIP QI government initiative. With data at your fingertips and improved workflow efficiency, you can focus on improving patient outcomes and increasing provider satisfaction.
 
Pen CS provides the following platforms to ensure compliance with PIP QI*:

Data Sharing with your PHN
  • Clinical audit tool, CAT4, may automatically submit consented data from the Practice to your PHN, at your chosen time(s).
 
PIP QI Dashboard, in Topbar
  • PIP QI dashboard report featuring ‘10 Improvement Measures’
  • Tracks and monitors QI for both the practice and their patients
 
PIP QI App , in Topbar
  • Matched to the presenting patient
  • Notifies the medical practitioner when there is missing information pertinent to improvement measures
  • Opportunistic data cleansing and QI
 
Quality Improvement Program, in CAT4
  • Detailed reports to assist practice planning, auditing and patient recall
Register Now
CAT4 and Topbar is available FREE for General Practices within a licenced PHN. Please contact your PHN to get your free licence.
 
Existing Customers – Update Now
For existing customers, please check you have Scheduler 3 installed to be PIP QI ready. If unsure, please contact Su pport on 1800 762 993 and [email protected] . 
 
*PIP QI modules coming soon.
UNSW Adult Vaccine Research Program: Q&A with Dr Rob Menzies
Several vaccines are funded for adults under the Australian National Immunisation Program (NIP), including influenza, pneumococcus and zoster. However, coverage of NIP vaccines recommended for adults, especially those medically at risk, is suboptimal.

UNSW is investigating the impact of using Topbar clinical decision support to opportunistically match under-vaccinated adults, and invite vaccination for patients eligible for influenza, pneumococcal and herpes zoster vaccines, during consultation. In parallel, the Pen CS’ Clinical Audit Tool (CAT4) is being employed to identify eligible unvaccinated patients in the practice to facilitate recall and reminder interventions by SMS voice and text messaging.

The aim is to increase coverage of NIP vaccines recommended for adults, especially those medically at risk. National vaccination coverage in those aged ≥65 years is approximately 75% for influenza and 55% for pneumococcal. For adults aged <65 years with medical risk factors, coverage is approximately 30%, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged ≥15 years influenza coverage is approximately 30%. These groups combined include >95% of Australians who have not received a vaccine for which they are eligible under the National Immunisation Program (NIP), or almost 4 million people.

Pen CS caught up with Dr Rob Menzies, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales.

Read More . 
Pen CS partners with Digital Health CRC
Pen CS is pleased to announce our participation in the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC) that has received funding of $200 million to enhance health delivery in Australia. The DHCRC’s aim is to optimise the use of evidence in research and development to provide digital solutions to health challenges. Through increasing efficiency and effectiveness in health and medical research, as well as providing personalised and targeted preventive care, the DHCRC is aiming to save the Australian health system an estimated $1.8 billion. 

Share Your View: National Primary Health Care Data Asset
The  Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW)  received funding in the May 2018 Federal Budget to develop an enduring National Primary Health Care Data Asset. The Data Asset will fill an information gap, with the intent to:

  • enable better population health planning
  • support improved patient health outcomes, and enable comparison across geography, remoteness and socio-economic gradients
  • enable and inform integrated care
  • help identify gaps in primary health care services and outcomes
  • enable an assessment of the equitable distribution of care
  • shape primary health care programs and policies
  • allow for international comparisons.
 
Pen CS recently participated in workshops in Melbourne and Sydney to be involved in the co-design of the Data Asset and its implementation.
 
Additionally, an exposure draft of the  Data Development Plan  for the Data Asset has been developed by the AIHW following consultation across relevant government committees and is now exposed publicly to gather comprehensive and considered input from the broader community.
 
Public Consultation is now open for interested parties to make a submission by  Thursday 30th May 2019, 11.59pm , via the  Online Survey link .
 
We encourage you to share your view.
 
Topbar MBS App: Quickly establishing patient eligibility for MBS items
The MBS app can assist providers in determining which MBS item is relevant for a patient. Once opened, the App will show recommended actions and the claim status for relevant items by looking at eligibility criteria and billing history. This allows Doctors to quickly establish if the patient currently open in the clinical system is eligible for certain MBS items and what actions need to be taken to meet MBS guidelines. A green tick will appear in the App once the item has been successfully claimed. 

Topbar is available for FREE from licensed PHNs. Contact your local PHN to find out if you are eligible for Topbar.
Medicare reports and prompts at point of care - Topbar/CAT4
In this webinar we will demonstrate how to use the MBS app in Topbar at the point of care to ensure the relevant MBS items are claimed for the eligible patients as well as showing MBS related reporting options in CAT4.

Learning Focus:
 
  • Be familiar with the MBS App in Topbar and know how to customise it according to their preferences
  • Understand the criteria used to determine patient eligibility in Topbar
  • Learn about the different MBS related reports and filteres in CAT4
  • Create meaningful reports using cross tabulation involving MBS reports in CAT4

Date: Wednesday 10 April
Time: 1:00pm to 1:30pm (AEST)

Checking basic indicators for Chronic Disease - CAT4
In this webinar we will demonstrate how to use CAT4 to identify patients with a number of chronic conditions and their basic measurements and pathology status. We will also show how to act once you have identified patients of interest by creating prompts for Topbar and/or recall patients using SMS/Voice messages based on your filters and search criteria.

Learning Focus:

  • Be familiar with using filters and reports relevant to patients with chronic conditions
  • Understand the underlying data to work with registers and pathology and other results in CAT4
  • Be able to create Topbar prompts to alert clinicians about patients in need of particular care
  • Know how to work with SMS/Voicemail recall based on their CAT4 filters/reports

Date: Wednesday 24 April
Time: 1:00pm to 1:30pm (AEST)

Previous Webinars
To view previous webinars, please:

How to access CPD Doctorportal Learning App
This month we will show you how to access the Australian Medical Association’s Doctorportal Learning from Topbar. The portal makes it easy to track and earn CPD points and Topbar gives you access with one click.