|
PHC RIS is committed to facilitating opportunities for researchers, policy makers and the Divisions of General Practice Network to communicate, engage and collaborate with one another.
More than 380 delegates attended the annual Primary Health Care (PHC) Research Conference in Darwin 30 June‑2 July 2010, which was themed: Primary health care research and health reform: Improving care.
PHC RIS demonstrated its support of PHCRED and other stakeholder events by attending and participating in annual PHCRED conferences and policy events, Divisions events and by assisting with the planning of the 2nd Rural and Remote Health Scientific Symposium.
In 2010, PHC RIS developed its international and national links with stakeholders by submitting articles to newsletters and by inviting contributions from our colleagues in Australia and overseas. PHC RIS also hosted a visit from Professor John Lavis, Director of the McMaster Health Forum, Canada, from which a collaborative project developed that resulted in PHC RIS revising its procedures for conducting literature reviews and synthesising research into reports.
Roadmap Of Australian primary health care Research (ROAR) is an on-line research tool that helps PHC RIS stakeholders find out about recent and current research, researchers, research organisations and research funding opportunities. ROAR continued to expand in 2010, with 850 new researcher, project, organisational and funding profiles being added to the database.
More than 190 000 people from 197 countries or territories accessed the PHC RIS website in 2010; 85% of these accessed the website from within Australia. Nearly a quarter of all traffic to the website went to the ROAR database, while the webpages about PHC Research Conferences were the second most viewed on the website; ROAR researcher profiles were the most viewed.
PHC RIS eBulletin is a weekly email compiled in-house and sent to subscribers comprising an array of national and international primary health care research publications, initiatives and activities. Interest in this service increased in 2010 and by the end of the year over 2 200 subscribers received this service; a 16% increase (364) on the previous year.
PHC RIS infonet is a bi-monthly newsletter designed to inform, influence and enhance primary health care practice, policy and research and aims to maximise communication sharing between our stakeholders. In 2010, over 1 000 hard copies of PHC RIS infonet were distributed and there was an increase of 34% (612) in the number of electronic subscriptions, bringing the total number of electronic subscriptions to 1 812.
PHC RIS has continued to develop its suite of PHC RIS infoBytesand Fact Sheets, which provide a plethora of information about divisions, dissemination, primary health care and research. Six new infoBytes and three new Fact Sheets were produced in 2010.
Snapshot of Australian primary health care research is an annual publication that is produced by PHC RIS and funded by the Department of Health and Ageing under the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy. Snapshot highlights recently completed work relevant to primary health care reform. Nearly 800 copies were distributed and more than 700 people visited the publication on-line. Snapshot was launched at the 2010 PHC Research Conference.
PHC RIS produced six issues of RESEARCH ROUNDup, three of which were publicised by Australian Policy Online: Avoiding hospitalisation: effective primary care interventions (October); How does teamwork support GPs and Allied Health Professionals to work together? (September); and Identifying gaps in primary care services: reaching the ‘unreached’ (August). This wider coverage contributed to an increase in requests for subscription to the RESEARCH ROUNDup mailing list.
PHC RIS produced three Rapid Responses; departmental briefings for submission to the Department of Health and Ageing that are used to help shape and inform policy.
PHC RIS collaborated with the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute to provide a Stocktake of primary health care research in Australia. The Stocktake report indicated four key strengths of primary health care research in Australia: a diverse research workforce; a supportive targeted infrastructure to develop research and researchers; a culture of research collaboration; and broad research activity around models of care, workforce needs and interventions for specific population groups.
The Research Capacity and Building Initiatives (RCBI) is funded through the PHCRED Strategy. PHC RIS supports the work of RCBIs by providing year-on-year comparisons of RCBI annual reports, which are made publicly available.
The Divisions Online Reporting System on the PHC RIS website has seen various improvements made to it during 2010, including a charting feature which enables Divisions to compare their own data with the performance of others. The search function also makes it easier for users to find the data they want.
In late in 2010, an additional program was developed and added to the on-line reporting system to capture data from applicable Divisions about allied health and other activities that are expected from Rural Primary Health Services.
|
