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Closing The Gap

> New AWGPN Aboriginal Health Project

"The Adeaide Western General Practice Network is supported by funding from the Australian Government under the Closing the Gap - Improving Indigenous Access to Mainstream Primary Care Program"

The aim of the program is to contribute to closing the gap in life expectancy by improving access to culturally sensitive primary care services for all Aboriginal Australians.

This new program is funded until 2012. Over the next 3 years AWGPN in collaboration with our GP members  and other associated Aboriginal health services, as a priority, will aim  to improve the health and life expectancy of our Indigenous population (last census indicated  3,000 Aboriginal people living in the Western suburbs).

The new Practice Incentives Program (PIP) Aboriginal Health Incentive commenced in May 2010. This Incentive will support GPs and Aboriginal health services to provide better health care to  Aboriginal Australians, including best practice management of chronic disease.

Downloads

• POWERPOINT OVERVIEW: 'Closing the Gap Program' by Mary-Anne Williams 
• Latest PIP Information for Closing the Gap - Indigenous Health Incentive Guidelines @ March 2010 from Medicare Australia
• FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions re Closing the Gap Program by Adelaide North East Division of General Practice - REVISED JUNE 2010 (v4)
• PBS Co-payment Measure - Pharmacy POSTER (published)
• PBS Co-payment Measure - Pharmacy Resource BOOKLET (published)

In brief there will be FOUR types of payments available through the PIP Aboriginal Health Incentive:

1.    Sign on payment of $1,000 made to practices that agree to seek consent to register their ATSI patients, establish a mechanism to ensure that ATSI patients over the age of 15 with chronic diseases are followed up. These practices will be required to undertake cultural awareness training. AWGPN will be facilitating free cultural awareness training for all Practice and Aboriginal health services staff during 2010.

2.   Annual patient registration payments of $250 for each ATSI patient who is over the age of 15 with a chronic disease, who has had or been, offered an appropriate ATSI health check.

3.  Chronic Disease management outcome payment $100 per patient for practices that develop GP management Plan or coordinate the development of team Care arrangement for their ATSI patients.

4. Total patient care outcomes payment $150 per patient, per year for the practice that provides the majority of MBS services for a patient (minimum requirement of 5 MBS services) in the registration period.

As this is a new project, initially it is important to map and have a baseline for where our Aboriginal community are seeking medical treatment in our Western Suburbs. To assist with this de-identified needs analysis data AWGPN are Offering Practices... 

1. FREE INSTALLATION of the PEN CAT TOOL

2. TRAINING OF PRACTICE STAFF to use the PEN CAT tool to assist with mapping our Aboriginal population access to health services.

3. QUALITY ASSURANCE PAYMENT of $150 to Practices who have the PEN CAT tool installed

Installation time of Pen CAT tool around half an hour.Many of our Practices are already benefiting from the Pen CAT data extraction tool and are impressed with the speed and efficiency of this tool partcuarily manageing patients with chronic diseases.

The Pen Clinical Audit Tool (CAT) is a clinical information system that supports quality improvement in information management and enhances the business capability of general practice. It is a software tool that operates with the GP Clinical Desktop System (e.g. Medical Director) to present the GP and other practice staff with meaningful clinical information. CAT scrutinises the aggregated patient information of the practice and presents it quickly and accurately in a refreshing new way that is easy to understand. The tool is free for GPs to use.

If you would like to arrange a time to have Pen CAT installed FREE in your Practice please contact Justin Reeves at the AWGPN on 8244 3822. 

 For More Details re Closing the Gap Please Contact:

Name:	Don Allan
Position:	AWGPN General Manager
Email:	don.allan@awgpn.org.au
Phone:	08 8244 3822
Fax:	08 8243 0260

 We regret that Mary-Anne Williams is no longer working with the AWGPN.

Page updated July 2010

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