Redevelopment

The PHC RIS website is an innovative portal to PHC RIS products and services, and continues to evolve to meet the needs of our stakeholders including the Divisions of General Practice Network, primary health care researchers and policy advisors. In 2005 the PHC RIS website underwent a major redevelopment to clarify and consolidate the way in which stakeholders access help and support information for the extensive range of products and services available. This new redeveloped site went live on 22 July in time for our annual GP & PHC Research Conference.

New features

Orientation: Given the broad range of users and the large amount on information available, Orientation for. was developed and promoted from the PHC RIS home page. These orientation pages were designed specifically for each stakeholder group to find the information and resources on the PHC RIS website most relevant to their needs and interests.

The eLibrary: The eLibrary is a searchable database which allows users to quickly browse all PHC RIS publications, conference proceedings, the research database ROAR, the PHC RIS events diary and the 381 relevant links PHC RIS has sourced.

PHC RIS infoBytes are 'Byte' size articles of information relevant to primary health care in Australia, which have been drawn together from a variety of research programs, organisations, journal articles, publications, current grants and funding sources. The infoBytes are informative, skill building on-line fact sheets, providing introductory information on a range of different subjects from Divisions planning and reporting, research methods, dissemination methods, evaluation, to tips on writing, applying for funding, and giving presentations.

A new section of the website was developed to include relevant information about all matters related to Planning and Reporting (P&R) for the National Quality Performance System (NQPS). It is planned that this section will be completed early in 2006, with all documentation relevant to the Divisions Network planning and reporting, FAQs, worked examples and links to other resources. The section will be continuously updated.

Numerous other resources were added to the PHC RIS website during 2005 including PHC RIS produced resources such as the Annual Report 2004, the report What supports Effective Links between Divisions of General Practice and universities?, various fact sheets, editions of the PHC RIS eBulletin, FOCUS on... and PHC RIS infonet .

The 2005 GP & PHC Research Conference registration, program and abstracts were provided on-line. The proceedings of the conference went on-line immediately after the conference, with PDFs of 105 paper presentations (where permission had been given).

2003-04 ASD, Divisions: the Network evolves, was made available in PDF from the website: both in one large PDF and smaller PDFs of chapters to enhance users download options. PHC RIS also made the tables and graphs available in an on-line format.

"I find the website a valuable link to a whole range of useful evaluation of research resources and frequently refer other researchers to you." (Researcher, Stakeholder survey 2005)

"The PHC RIS website is a great resource that I regularly recommend to PHC clinicians interested in research and evaluation and early career researchers." (Researcher, Stakeholder survey 2005)