The importance of ACCHO’s General Practitioners involvement in CQI was highlighted in presentations at the recent AH&MRC CQI forum.
Dr Josh Bush GP from the Northern Rivers area of NSW shared insights into the Northern Rivers Aboriginal Health Services collaborative approach to CQI activities. The clinical group included GPs from Bulgarr Ngaru Medical Aboriginal Corporation (Grafton, Casino and Tweed Heads AMS) Bullinah Aboriginal Health Service (Ballina) and Rekindling the Spirit (Lismore). With executive support and a Public Health Physician as regional coordinator, they have been working on implementing strategies to study health issues impacting their community, review how these issues were being managed and developing solutions to improve health services at a local and regional level. Through this process, the teams have improved the quality of clinical care at the same time as increasing engagement and morale of clinical staff and fulfilling their continuing professional development (CPD) mandatory requirements of reviewing performance and measuring outcomes.
Tracey Brand CEO and Dr Lakhinder Kang GP from Derbal Yerrigan Health Service Aboriginal Corporation, Western Australia showed how they have used CQI to implement change within the clinical and broader teams. As a result of these changes, Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service was awarded the RACGP WA General Practice of the year in 2023 in recognition of demonstrating excellence in patient care, safety and commitment to the well-being of the community. Many delegates expressed interest in the presentations, particularly the numerous clinical items and audits Derbarl Yerrigan had developed in Communicare. Success was attributed to:
- Having organisation leadership support
- Having a CQI team
- Having a project lead
- Training staff
- Creating good systems
- Data sharing
AH&MRC Public Health Team are keen to learn from these successful CQI programs and develop resources to assist ACCHO’s with accessing clinical processes and audits to improve health services and health outcomes. Currently on the AH&MRC the Ngununggula Walking and Working together CQI activities developed with Illawarra Aboriginal Medical service are available. Also available on the Cancer Institute NSW website is the Continuous Quality Improvement Toolkit which includes Resources and Tools for Primary Care.
Please contact publichealth@ahmrc.org.au if you have specific health conditions that you would like to be seen included in CQI resources.
