Valewood Clinic benefits from Practice 2030 Program

24 May, 2018

Last year, Valewood Clinic was one of the practices that participated in the first round of EMPHN’s Practice 2030 initiative.

The initiative aims to provide the resources and tools for practices to make changes in organisational performance, in line with accreditation benchmarks and the ever-changing landscape of general practice.

Valewood Clinic Practice Manager Gaye Sinclair said her practice had a wonderful experience being involved in round one of Practice 2030.

“We realised that with the changes to the Quality Incentive – PIP, the new 5th Edition standards for Accreditation and the new Health Care Homes Model, we needed to be proactive to ensure our clinic was ready for upcoming changes and challenges,” Gaye said.

The practice has a commitment to 12 months involvement in the project, which includes three interactive workshops along with monthly coaching by the team at EMPHN.

“Whilst, at times, we scrambled to get our paperwork together before our monthly visit, the process has been very rewarding for all involved, producing some exciting improvements,” she said.

“The interactive workshops, which covered leadership and teams, were very well received by all attendees and certainly assisted us to consider our own interaction and processes in our clinics.

“The PDSA (Plan Do Study Act) process makes you think a bit differently about quality improvement and how to approach it.

“As managers and clinics, we are constantly involved in quality improvement, but we never document the process or our goals for the future, most of our management is often done on the fly.

As a result of being involved in Practice 2030, the whole team brainstorms ideas for improvements, which are then tried, looked to see if they have been a successful improvement, then implemented or reviewed and reworked.

“The process of quality improvement will never cease in general practice; the goal posts are constantly changing and our practices need to evolve, improve and engage to be sustainable and innovative general practices providing quality patient-centred care.

“I would encourage all practices, if they have the opportunity, to get involved in future Practice 2030 rounds.”

For more information about Practice 2030, contact Koula Totsidis via koula.totsidis@emphn.org.au.