Welcome to the first edition of Clinician Connect for 2021.
Last year was disruptive and challenging for everyone, and we all adapted to a new level of flexibility to our work and personal lives.
At the Agency for Clinical Innovation, the disruption meant that some projects were paused; new priorities emerged and were rapidly progressed; while other programs of work continued and made steady gains. One such program which continued to be developed throughout 2020 is the NSW Patient Report Measures (PRMs) Program which has now reached a significant milestone.
Earlier in February, PRMs started the implementation period in the first local health district – Illawarra Shoalhaven – which will be ongoing over the coming months across the state. Beginning this implementation period is a significant milestone, which capitalises on all of the learnings from the development and testing of the new information technology platform.
PRMs are the foundation of value-based health care. They enable clinicians to consider the needs and expectations of patients and provide the basis for clinicians to better understand the impact that their care has on their patients.
The statewide PRMs Program gives patients the opportunity to provide direct, timely feedback about their health-related experiences and outcomes. These measures are captured in patient surveys to give clinicians an insight into the needs and expectations of patients at the point of care.
Through feedback and testing, we know that clinicians love the measures and patients feel as though we are paying attention to things that matter to them – their quality of life.
The data will also inform the health system about where it is performing well and where there are opportunities for improvement. Measuring PRMs at the system level is a significant innovation – it is a new type of data that will complement existing data assets available for NSW Health to evaluate, plan and innovate in healthcare delivery.
PRMs will be captured using the Health Outcomes and Patient Experience (HOPE) system. The HOPE system has emerged from five years of piloting and gradually bringing the measures, processes and technologies together to spread and scale the early successes achieved in very specific clinical settings to broader contexts.
I am proud of the achievements of the ACI team and the great collaboration with partners across the system, including eHealth, the Ministry of Health and local health districts, that a program of this calibre requires.
Of course, the future will not be without its challenges. This is a significant innovation that will – at times – disrupt previous ways of working. Our focus will be on co-designing new approaches to embed the measures into clinical practice. Partnerships with local health districts are in place to ensure we can work together to bring this program to clinicians and patients, and transform experiences of providing and receiving healthcare. You can read more about the program in our feature story.
I hope you enjoy reading this edition of Clinician Connect, including:
- the growth of virtual care across the state
- an update on the clinical directorates at the ACI
- news from our clinical networks, institutes and taskforces
- a spotlight on the Nutrition Network
- a profile of the Frailty Taskforce, which showcases collaboration and engagement across clinical networks and the health sector.
Dr Jean-Frederic Levesque
Chief Executive, Agency for Clinical Innovation