Roadmap Of Australian primary health care Research (ROAR)

The research register ROAR (Roadmap Of Australian primary health care Research) is an on-line database of information about Australian primary health care researchers, research projects, organisations and funding. ROAR, which commenced in 2004, is designed to raise awareness of primary health care research, reduce duplication of research effort, and facilitate collaborative research partnerships.

ROAR continued to be developed and refined in 2005. Content was largely sourced manually through negotiation with the NHMRC, RACGP, the Department of Health and Ageing, and personal invitations sent to researchers who had been awarded research funding during 2005.

Content is now submitted to PHC RIS via electronic forms available from ROAR's homepage on the PHC RIS website. At the end of 2005 ROAR contained searchable information about 470 research projects, 127 researcher profiles, 160 research organisations and 27 funding bodies.

Activities of Divisions (AOD)

PHC RIS maintained the current on-line Activities of Divisions (AOD) database for Divisions' plans and reports submitted in the Outcome Based Funding template (OBF) since 1999.

The register of data holdings contains plans and reports from every Division for the years up to 2003-04. While Plans for 2004-05 are complete, so far PHC RIS has received 12 Month reports from 60 Divisions for 2004-05 (50%).

General Practice Evaluation Program (GPEP)

The General Practice Evaluation Program (GPEP) - a $12m program - was established in 1990, as part of the Commonwealth General Practice Strategy to evaluate changes in general practice and to determine the effects of these changes on quality and economic efficiency.

The GPEP database was developed to capture and record projects to assist current and future researchers and research users. In recent years PHC RIS has collected references to 225 journal articles which are listed alongside the related project summaries.

In October 2005 PHC RIS received the last GPEP Final Report, resulting in a total of 252 project summaries in the GPEP register.

GPEP funded research has provided valuable information about general practice in Australia, in particular economic analysis, the development of new ways of organising the delivery of care and specific program evaluations. To improve access to these findings, the 252 report summaries in the GPEP on-line database were transferred into ROAR in November 2005.