> Publications & presentations > PHC RIS infonet > April 2006

Editorial: A new reporting system

Organisational reporting systems need to satisfy two purposes, accountability and learning, with minimal burden and maximum value for all concerned - organisations, their stakeholders and their funding bodies. Great hopes are held that the new reporting system for Divisions of General Practice will meet these requirements in the long term. The system is designed to allow consistent reporting of outcomes as well as activities across the Divisions Network, together with reflections from Divisions and State Based Organisations about their progress towards each objective in the national priority areas. The system should also streamline Divisions' planning and reporting to different sections of the Department of Health and Ageing.

In February 2006 Divisions of General Practice and State Based Organisations produced their first six month reports on plans developed according to the National Quality and Performance System (NQPS). State and Territory Offices are now processing and approving these reports. PHC RIS and the Australian Divisions of General Practice/State Based Organisations (ADGP/SBO) coalition are looking forward to finding out how well the content and the processes of the new reporting system have stood up to this first test, and what improvements are needed for the future.

We have been encouraged to learn recently about an innovative web based accomplishment reporting system created a few years ago to capture all accomplishment results from the diverse and varied activities of the North Carolina cooperative extension service. One element of the North Carolina system which intrigued us was the inclusion of a mechanism to report 'success stories', truncated after 150 words. Workers were provided with training and fact sheets to develop their skills in writing strong concise statements of the problem and the impact. After five years of operation the extension reporting system has been very successful as a vehicle for entering and retrieving information which is critical to accountability needs of many different groups, and assisting personnel to focus on producing and identifying real impacts of their work. It has, however, required considerable personnel and financial resources.

While at first the agricultural extension sector may seem very distant from the Australian Division network, there are many similarities in practical focus, diversity of approaches to meet local needs, evaluation challenges and accountability requirements. PHC RIS has previously publicised Bennett's hierarchy of outcomes which was developed in the extension sector, and has proved so useful for planning, evaluation and reporting. We are in a good position in Australia in 2006 to apply some of the lessons from North Carolina . There could be an opportunity to adopt training methods and templates to ensure that the content of the numerous qualitative indicators is as meaningful and punchy as possible. We need to ensure that the system is user friendly, and that valuable information from the reports is easily available with the required degree of aggregation or analysis to people at all levels of the Divisions Network as well as to related organisations and universities. The challenge that faces us is to now use the new reporting system to achieve its two purposes of accountability and learning.

References:
Web based accomplishment reporting system - http://www.joe.org/joe/1998april/a1.html
Bennett's hierarchy: GPinfonet February 2003, http://citnews.unl.edu/TOP/english/overviewf.html