27 practices enrolled for Winter Strategy 2019 which is running for its third year.
Patient registrations opened on 1 April 2019 with practices registering around 800 of their most vulnerable patients.
The LHD will activate electronic Admission and Discharge Notifications (ADNs) for these patients.
The LHD assisted GPs with their patient selection by providing patient hospitalisation data back to practices.
The first instalment of the Winter Strategy 2018 evaluation report has been published and is available to view via the North Coast Primary health Network’s website https://ncphn.org.au/archives/programs/northern-nsw-winter-strategy.
The 2018 evaluation shows that indicators of:
patient access, self-care confidence and comprehensiveness of care, all improved.
These changes were both clinically and statistically significant.
Paired pre and post Clinician Experience Survey questions, covering general practice and hospital communication and collaboration, also showed improvement.
The consistency of results from patient surveys, clinician surveys and practice interviews supporting a likely improvement in quality of care, is very encouraging. This is consistent across several aspects of quality including access, comprehensiveness, and patients’ self-management.
A second instalment of the report examining impact of winter strategy on hospitalisations through propensity matching will be available in the coming months.