Case study – Helping GPs provide coordinated care over vast distances

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The healthcare workers at Western Australia's Goldfields and Midwest Primary Health Networks operate in one of the most challenging geographical areas on the globe, containing some of the nation's most vulnerable communities.

Remote healthcare powered by digital health technologies – including Extensia's shared record system – reaches across vast distances and disadvantage to provide improved health.

The region covered by Goldfields PHN is the largest in the state and covers a land area of 771,276 square metres – three times the size of Victoria and just under a third of the total land mass of WA. Yet it serves a population of only around 55,000. 

The Midwest region, bordered by the Indian Ocean, is more than 600,000 square kilometres in size, with the majority of its 63,650 residents found along the coast.

To add to the complexity of the challenge of providing healthcare over such massive areas, the Aboriginal community represents 10 per cent of the population.

With many patients living with chronic and complex medical conditions and some required to travel long distances between providers, digital technologies are improving care outcomes, efficiencies and costs.

To help in the provision of coordinated care by GPs and other healthcare providers, particularly for the highly mobile Indigenous population, Extensia developed the GoldHealth Shared Record.

The platform was initially created with the then Goldfields GP Network, which evolved into the Goldfields Midwest Medicare Local that now exist as separate PHNs. Throughout it all, the GoldHealth Shared Record has been helping providers to provide truly connected care throughout their patients' care.

Extensia founder Rob Kelly AM said the groundbreaking platform was created in close collaboration with clinicians to understand their unique needs.

"This is a genuine leap forward in terms of connecting health information across the health ecosystem, even in an enormous area. Due to the unprecedented enthusiasm and cooperation from the healthcare professionals in the Goldfields region and then in the Midwest, the GoldHealth Shared Record boasts one of the most diverse communities connected to a shared electronic health record anywhere in Australia,” Mr Kelly said. 

"Patients, Indigenous health service providers, hospitals, public community services, aged care facilities, other healthcare providers, pharmacies and allied health services are all able to see the information they need to see – with the patients' permission.”

Country WA PHN, which oversees the rural PHNs, reports that significant pockets of socio-economic disadvantage (people living in the lowest quintile for socio-economic disadvantage in WA) exist in these areas, including in the Goldfields. Secondary school attendance in Goldfields is 66 per cent, unemployment rates are 6.5 per cent, and the region has the second highest rate of homelessness of the rural PHNs. 

BENEFITS

Improved quality of care for patients

Reduced duplication of services by improved monitoring and care coordination

Improved patient knowledge and self-managed health

Improved knowledge of health services

Reduced risk of hospital admissions and unnecessary readmissions

Increased practice capacity to manage patients with chronic disease.

RECORDPOINT SUPPORTS

Coordinated care for chronic disease

User security and authentication

Interface to desktop clinical systems

Centralised, hosted, shared EHR

Audit logs

Patient consent management.

HOW DOES RECORDPOINT ENABLE COORDINATED CARE?

RecordPoint clearly displays information from along a patient's care continuum by integrating with primary, secondary and tertiary health software and non-clinical software systems.

Its ease of use encourages genuine collaboration between healthcare providers for care planning, which is why it has been deployed in Indigenous health, aged care, clinical trials, disabilities care, and chronic disease management in metropolitan, regional, remote settings. It has also been used to share information and enable coordinated care between state-run hospitals and Commonwealth-funded primary care ​systems.

By aggregating data, RecordPoint also fuels innovation by improving the functionality of health apps, AI, machine learning, mobile devices and emerging technologies.​

Meanwhile, each RecordPoint community is able to have its own tailored consent model and data governance oversight.

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