Capital Health Network

Supporting primary health care with digital health solutions

Constant changes and new legislation in the digital health sector such as the introduction of Active Ingredient Prescriptions and changes to Telehealth MBS items needed to be communicated to ACT primary health care professionals. To inform these updates, CHN provided educational activities such as webinars and events. A specialist event was held to meet with specialists and promote the use of digital health tools. Another webinar about Electronic Prescribing featured a speaker from the Australian Digital Health Agency and first-hand stories from a GP and a Pharmacist.

CHN worked collaboratively with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to ensure that information produced and communicated throughout the ACT was accurate and factual, particularly around Active Ingredient Prescriptions and Image Based Prescriptions in Telehealth consults.

A key priority was also to support health system improvements in the area of digital health. The ACT & SNSW HealthPathways team partnered with CHN’s Digital Health Team and collaborated on the development and review of a suite of five evidence-based pathways for health professionals. The project developed specific ACT & SNSW HealthPathways that supported health professionals to navigate and capitalise on national digital health initiatives. It also summarised relevant digital health initiative information and provided checklists, toolkits and resources that were utilised by health professionals at the point of care.

To support busy and time-poor general practice staff, CHN created the succinct Digital Health Toolkit for General Practice to provide information about digital health tools and platforms. The toolkit includes the required steps for utilising and installing these digital health programs and tools in their practice. This resource is a single central source, which succinctly provides all the necessary information. It doesn’t include unnecessary and lengthy background information and extrapolations that would be too time consuming to absorb. Feedback from the RACGP and practitioners is that the toolkit is useful and easy to follow.