Better data. Deeper insights. Stronger health care.
Discover how PHNs are using innovative digital technology to deliver value to thousands of stakeholders across the primary health care sector.
Hear from three subject matter experts below.
Secure, efficient data sharing for Queensland
Queensland Health and Queensland PHNs’ emergency care data collaboration project
Data sharing from a Primary Health Insights (PHI) non-participant to PHNs’ platform storage areas was not originally envisaged as a key purpose of PHI. However, due to its strong cybersecurity and data governance credentials, as well as its adoption by all Queensland PHNs, the project team had significant confidence in using the platform.
Initial challenges arose due to the large dataset, the establishment of additional new governance measures and slow processing speeds.
“We sought a secure and streamlined data sharing method and the flexibility inherent within the PHI platform allowed us to be innovative. The WAPHA team clearly identified the challenges, proposed an alternative solution, and successfully tested and implemented it in a live environment. Developing and testing a prototype solution was particularly valuable as it allowed us to refine the model.
We eliminated the data processing blockages, reducing processing times by around 90 per cent for Queensland PHNs. We also maintained quality governance around the data we receive from our very key stakeholder, Queensland Health.”
-Peter Boffey
The project outcome is an efficient end-to-end process securely encapsulated within PHI that meets all data sharing requirements. This solution can now be replicated for data sets beyond emergency department data.
Queensland PHNs and Queensland Health now look forward to incorporating primary care data into this collaborative project, sharing data with Queensland Health via PHI, ultimately driving improved health outcomes for Queensland communities.
Peter Boffey
Data team Leader – Brisbane North PHN
KPP@brisbanenorthphn.org.au
Primary Sense – enabling proactive care in general practice
Southern Star Medical
Southern Star Medical is a busy practice drawing a diverse patient population from a growing area of metropolitan Perth. Its nurses use of Primary Sense reports helps their simultaneous management of wide-ranging health conditions and preventative health programs.
Running reports is built into their monthly and weekly routine for the various parts of their role. The diverse range of reports and quick access also help with the investigation of day-to-day issues.
“Importantly, Primary Sense reports can swiftly pinpoint our patients with high complexity scores. Patients at the highest level 5 often have multiple comorbidities and face significant risks of poor health outcomes. By running reports to identify these patients, we’re able to be proactive manage their care in a busy practice environment and support improved patient health outcomes in a positive way.”
– Laura Johnson
Southern Star Medical benefits from using Primary Sense reports to track progress against accreditation standards and PIP QI data requirements, e.g. practice accreditation requires records of patients’ smoking status and allergies. Primary Sense provides quantified data quality improvement measures.
This also enables its nurses to measure trends in their patient population and track the impact of initiatives put in place for issues like weight management or blood tests.
Laura Johnson
Practice Manager – Southern Star Medical
Uncovering hidden insights in mental health data
Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Dataset Collaboration Project
As the inaugural collaboration project in PHI, this project marked the first nationwide effort for data analysts to come together and work on a combined data analytics project.
It has yielded a number of significant benefits for PHNs locally and nationally, with positive impacts on the stakeholders and communities they serve.
Collaborative analytics
Monthly primary mental health care data for 19 participating PHNs from July 2021 onwards represents a robust sample size and ensures a high level of confidence in the analysis and insights uncovered – this is especially advantageous for smaller PHNs with lower individual data volumes.
Standardised approach
This collaboration established a working method and approach to data projects. In coming together, data analysts, who typically focus on their individual PHN’s data, collaborated and brainstormed. PHNs now have a standardised approach to the analysis of a national dataset.
Equal access
Smaller PHNs that do not have the scale and access to advanced analytics skills can bring their data into this collaboration and start consuming the analytics, similarly to a large PHN.
Strategic insights
PHNs are also contributing ideas of what else to include in this analysis. The insights so far were the result of the participants sharing how they used the collaboration learnings locally, what they have discovered from the reports and where their strengths lie versus other PHNs.
Future investigations
The Primary Mental Health Care Minimum Dataset Collaboration Project has spawned future investigations, and analytics teams from different PHNs are working together more often and with other datasets.
“It’s been very impactful for PHNs to be able understand their own story in a way that they had never seen before. By having key insights about their mental health commissioned services and how they compare with other PHNs, any individual participant can deduce why those variations exist given their location and their mix of services, clients and diagnoses. The value of this is significant, and as data is added more frequently, the insights derived become increasingly meaningful. ”
– Nikhil Mathew
The next step is to operationalise the project into an ongoing activity. PHNs have been working to streamline and automate the solution and the working group has proposed enhancements.
Nikhil Mathew
Chief Analytics Officer – WA Primary Health Alliance
Nikhil.Mathew@wapha.org.au or NPCAPComms@phinsights.org.au
