Presentation Type
Presentation
Location
The University of Notre Dame Australia Broome Campus
NDB8, The Kailis Room
Start Date
24-5-2023 12:30 PM
Description
While Australia’s current health care system can seem impossible to comprehend and navigate, one design principle holds for all sustainable health care systems. This is that the first point of call should be at the level of primary care. An effective, equitable and efficient primary care system acts early in response to need, integrates person-centred evidence-based therapeutic interventions and prevents disease progression while knowing the local context including social determinants of health and community resources. Primary care must be accessible to all. This is why the World Health Organisation advocates for significant government investments in a well-trained and geographically distributed generalist health workforce in primary care, universal health coverage and community engagement. As we will explain in this presentation, one of the better system-level measures of capacity in primary care is that derived from systematically monitoring the unnecessary flow-on effect in hospitals that occurs when primary care is under-resourced. This monitoring measure is known as the all-cause age-standardised potentially preventable hospitalisation (PPH) rate. This is calculated by collating 22 carefully coded clinical conditions that have ultimately caused hospitalisation. The National Health Reform Agreement intends that data for PPH rates could be accessed by anyone with an interest or curiosity in primary care performance which is, through the Agreement, a central responsibility for the Commonwealth government. This presentation begins with the genesis of our initial focus on trends over time within country WA that had been prompted by a question from the Rural Generalist Advisory Council about placements for postgraduate vocational medical training for general practice. Our findings for 13 SAs that comprise country WA will be discussed. We then broadened our scope to determine trends over time across the whole country in 330 Statistical Area 3 regions (SA3). Using this measure, 73% of SA3s across Australia have had a significant deterioration in primary care capacity from 12/13FY to the most recent public data 17/18FY. By 17/18FY, some jurisdictions have a majority of their SA3 rates worse than the national rate, demonstrating further inequity across the country. Failure by the Commonwealth government to invest responsively, proportionately and verifiably in primary care as described in the National Health Reform Agreement puts populations in these SA3s and their health at risk. Our local data in the Kimberley region will also be of interest to Nulungu researchers and local residents. We are keen to hear your views!
Recommended Citation
Ward, Jeanette and Bell, Janice, "When data tell their own story: Measuring health system performance over time" (2023). Talking Heads Seminar Series. 4.
https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/nulungu_talkingheads/2023/schedule/4
Included in
When data tell their own story: Measuring health system performance over time
The University of Notre Dame Australia Broome Campus
NDB8, The Kailis Room
While Australia’s current health care system can seem impossible to comprehend and navigate, one design principle holds for all sustainable health care systems. This is that the first point of call should be at the level of primary care. An effective, equitable and efficient primary care system acts early in response to need, integrates person-centred evidence-based therapeutic interventions and prevents disease progression while knowing the local context including social determinants of health and community resources. Primary care must be accessible to all. This is why the World Health Organisation advocates for significant government investments in a well-trained and geographically distributed generalist health workforce in primary care, universal health coverage and community engagement. As we will explain in this presentation, one of the better system-level measures of capacity in primary care is that derived from systematically monitoring the unnecessary flow-on effect in hospitals that occurs when primary care is under-resourced. This monitoring measure is known as the all-cause age-standardised potentially preventable hospitalisation (PPH) rate. This is calculated by collating 22 carefully coded clinical conditions that have ultimately caused hospitalisation. The National Health Reform Agreement intends that data for PPH rates could be accessed by anyone with an interest or curiosity in primary care performance which is, through the Agreement, a central responsibility for the Commonwealth government. This presentation begins with the genesis of our initial focus on trends over time within country WA that had been prompted by a question from the Rural Generalist Advisory Council about placements for postgraduate vocational medical training for general practice. Our findings for 13 SAs that comprise country WA will be discussed. We then broadened our scope to determine trends over time across the whole country in 330 Statistical Area 3 regions (SA3). Using this measure, 73% of SA3s across Australia have had a significant deterioration in primary care capacity from 12/13FY to the most recent public data 17/18FY. By 17/18FY, some jurisdictions have a majority of their SA3 rates worse than the national rate, demonstrating further inequity across the country. Failure by the Commonwealth government to invest responsively, proportionately and verifiably in primary care as described in the National Health Reform Agreement puts populations in these SA3s and their health at risk. Our local data in the Kimberley region will also be of interest to Nulungu researchers and local residents. We are keen to hear your views!
