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ENHANCED SHARING OF INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE

Initiate and participate in multifaceted communication approaches

PHC RIS promotes sharing of information and knowledge by creating the right opportunities for people to communicate, and by ensuring necessary information is available and easily accessible and presented in an acceptable format for the end user.

To promote knowledge exchange, PHC RIS convened the 2007 General Practice & Primary Health Care (GP & PHC) Research Conference in Sydney in May. Ninety-one percent of conference delegates rated the Conference highly as a forum for networking, which they cited as their main reason for attendance. The program fully used the time of the three day conference from Wednesday 23 to Friday 25 May to schedule more than 140 paper presentations and 60 poster displays, four plenary sessions and six pre-conference workshops. Constant discussion and networking opportunities presented themselves, and delegates made the most of every moment.

Planning for the 2008 GP & PHC Research Conference began prior to the 2007 Conference in Sydney. The Conference date was chosen to ensure it did not clash with events that might prevent speakers and delegates attending. The 2008 GP & PHC Research Conference - Health for All? will be held 4-6 June 2008, at Hotel Grand Chancellor in Hobart , Tasmania and has been advertised and promoted widely.

Provide feedback to providers of data

In the first quarter of 2007 PHC RIS distributed individual feedback reports to all organisations in the Divisions Network based on Divisions' responses to the Annual Survey of Divisions. As with the previous year, Divisions were given the opportunity to revise inaccurate responses in the ASD after viewing the draft feedback and 25% of Divisions responded and took the opportunity to make changes to their ASD responses prior to publication.

Thank you for the advice and we look forward to receiving the hard copy. This has been a good learning curve this year and hopefully the data will assist with future planning for us.
- Division of General Practice

Enhance the sharing of information and knowledge

In 2007 PHC RIS conducted the Networking project, an applied research project designed to gain a greater understanding of ways that the GP & PHC Research Conference can enhance the sharing of information and knowledge, and collaboration between stakeholder groups. A draft report was completed by the end of 2007. Preliminary results showed that a well organised conference program with appropriate spaces and time for networking enhances productive collaborations within the primary health care research sector. A workshop was held in December with the PHC RIS team outlining the actionable messages, so that they could be incorporated into planning for the 2008 conference.

Support the PHCRED strategy

In 2007 PHC RIS summarised and analysed data from the 2006 annual reports for the Research Capacity Building Initiative. This was distributed to DoHA , all PHCRED Statewide Coordinators, Directors and Coordinators and published on the PHC RIS website. The 2007 GP & PHC Research Conference convened by PHC RIS enabled over sixty researchers, supported through the PHCRED Strategy, to present their work to their wider research community. PHC RIS was further able to support the PHCRED strategy through:

• PHC RIS infonet: in which PHC RIS published 25 articles from PHCRED funded university departments bimonthly in 2007
• the PHC RIS website: where key documents such as the strategic plans and evaluation reports, up to date contact details of PHCRED coordinators, and PHCRED resources were stored
• ROAR: PHC RIS published researcher profiles and details of current and complete PHCRED research projects
• PHC RIS eBulletin: where PHC RIS published details of grants, positions vacant and relevant journal articles weekly.

In addition PHC RIS staff attended and presented at all six state PHCRED research meetings.