Health Workforce

Health Workforce

Building capacity and capability in

our local workforce

______________________________________

Year in review


Our PHN is committed to supporting our local primary health care workforce to deliver better patient care. 

56

face to face events held 

37

webinars held

2,656 

healthcare professionals attended our events and webinars

200+

hours of education provided

*Please note event figures impacted by COVID-19


In 2019-20, our Primary Care Liaison team focused on providing support in the following areas:

  • digital health, including My Health Record
  • education and training opportunities
  • accreditation support
  • practice management
  • practice incentives
  • cancer screening
  • MBS billing
  • patient referrals
  • My health for life

Meaningful education that improves health care

This year, our Primary Care Liaison team provided free meaningful education across our region for health professionals to learn and grow their skillset.

Topics covered in education and training provided include: 

  • PenCS
  • My Health Record
  • pain management
  • diabetes management in general practice 
  • palliative care
  • immunisation updates
  • triage in general practice
  • NPS Medicinewise workshops



  • COVID-19
  • pharmacy training
  • digital health in practice
  • Improvement Foundation practice

Our Conferences

Dalby Harvest Festival 


The inaugural Dalby Harvest Festival was held in November 2019 providing education and training to rural health professionals from across the Darling Downs.


The one-day, conference-style event focused on providing a

well-rounded day of education, focusing on topics such as heart attack prevention, women’s health, palliative care, sleep apnoea and medicinal cannabis.





Read more

West Moreton Paediatric Symposium


Over 70 GPs and health professional from across the West Moreton region attended the first-of-its-kind West Moreton Paediatric Symposium.


A joint event hosted in partnership with West Moreton Health, the one-day Symposium was targeted at GPs and other health professionals, and provided advice and tips to assist clinicians when treating children and young people with developmental and behavioural needs.


The Symposium featured presentations from leading local paediatricians, psychologists, physiotherapists and social workers.

Read more

Meet and greets and Chapter Meetings 

To support our primary care community to further build their networks, we continued to host a number of new and existing networking events in 2019-20, including:

  • Health Professional Meet and Greets – Goondiwindi, Warwick, Stanthorpe, Dalby, Chinchilla and Toowoomba


  • Practice Manager Network Meetings – Toowoomba and Ipswich, and video conferencing for rural practices


  • Allied Health Networking Events – Kingaroy, Goondiwindi, Warwick, Stanthorpe, Dalby and Toowoomba


  • GP Chapter Meetings - Toowoomba, Dalby, Kingaroy, Murgon, Chinchilla, Goondiwindi, Warwick and Stanthorpe

HealthPathways

HealthPathways is a long-term program aimed at supporting GPs and health care professionals to guide their patients to better care. It is a

web-based portal offering evidence-based information for assessment

and management of a range of clinical conditions and includes clear referral guidance for local hospitals, specialists and allied health.


Our region operates two local online portals: Darling Downs HealthPathways and West Moreton HealthPathways. Collectively the two portals have over 750 pathways for clinicians to access and during the last year they have been viewed 36,069 times.


Our PHN built a campaign in June 2020 to better communicate HealthPathways to health professionals in our region.

Visit HealthPathways page to learn more

"HealthPathways is designed to help clinicians improve decision making at the point of care"

Dr Tanusha Ramaloo - Darling Downs and West Moreton PHN GPLO



GP Investment Strategy

In recognition of the critical role GPs play within the primary health care system, the PHN released the ‘Investing in Primary

Care – General Practice Investment Strategy’ in 2019-20 to further support GPs deliver health care to people across the region.


The strategy was primarily aimed at supporting GPs to:


  • work towards their business goals and sustainability;
  • share their knowledge of their local population health priorities and needs;
  • contribute their expertise to the successful design of funded programs and services;
  • improve access to health services for vulnerablepopulations;
  • access evidence-based Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and decision support tools; and
  • use data to improve quality of care.
View the Strategy here

COVID-19 Response

The outbreak of COVID-19 across the world at the beginning of 2020 brought together governments, health care providers and the community like never before.


To provide an integrated response in the Darling Downs and West Moreton region, our PHN, West Moreton Health and Darling Downs Health worked collaboratively to ensure critical information was delivered to GPs and health professionals in a timely and effective manner.


Together, the PHN and health services rapidly established fever clinics and GP-led respiratory clinics to provide safe and accessible avenues for community to get assessed and tested for COVID-19.


This required ongoing community engagement with stakeholders, local government and consumers to keep all groups informed of all developments. 


Our work to respond to COVID-19 also included: 


  • GoShare Plus COVID-19 Pilot - funding 20 licences to enable GPs to effectively communicate and share resources with patients they identified as being at-risk of COVID-19 using the GoShare Plus platform. 
  • Telehealth – supporting over 90 residential aged care facilities and 177 general practices adopt telehealth to support their patients access care. 
  • Distribution of PPE – organising the delivery of surgical and N95 masks to general practices and pharmacies.
  • Timely dissemination of information to GPs and health professionals – distributing timely information to GPs and other health professionals through Alerts and Webinars.

Health Workforce projects

Primary Care Placement Program


The Primary Care Placement Program offered

short-term placements with an ‘expert’ clinician or support staff member to learn specific clinical skills and/or observe service delivery and administrative processes associated with their primary care service.


“Everyone was approachable as well as helpful in understanding the ins and outs of general practice. The Medical Director training was an immense help with achieving our accreditation.”  Program Participant

Paediatric placement program for GPs


Our PHN partnered with West Moreton Health to provide paid clinical placements for GPs to train with the Paediatric Behaviour and Development Medical Team at Ipswich Hospital. The 12-week placement focuses on building GP confidence when managing children with behaviour disorders and utilising effective intervention techniques to stimulate development.


“I have really learnt how to approach patients with behavioural conditions. Something I wasn’t very

comfortable with before.” Program Participant 


 ASPIRE2HEALTH


 The program is designed for year 9 and 10 students   interested in a health career. The workshop provides   an opportunity to meet and talk with local health   care students and professionals; observe a   simulated emergency with paramedics, doctors and   nurses; and have some fun learning some of the key   skills taught in a health degree.


“I enjoyed meeting all the different health professions and having the opportunity to do medical skills.”  ASPIRE2HEALTH Attendee

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