Liz Farmer, Director of Education, NPCC
The Third Wave of the National Primary Care Collaboratives (NPCC) program has just commenced with 178 practices from across Australia participating in the improvement program.
Following Orientation days in major capital cities across Australia throughout June, practices will attend their first Learning Workshop on 27-28 July at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne.
The NPCC program has so far assisted over 300 practices in the first two Waves to make significant improvements in the three topic areas of diabetes, secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (CHD) and better access to primary carers through improved practice efficiency.
The latest National results show a number of impressive improvements as Waves 1 and 2 continue to submit monthly data in line with defined clinical measures in each of the topic areas.
The CHD MI measure (patients with a Myocardial Infarction in the last 12 months recorded as on a Beta Blocker) has shown the greatest improvement in Wave 1 to date with an improvement on baseline by 105.34%, the equivalent of over double the percentage recorded at baseline.
Wave 2 at only Month 7 of participation (June 2006) has seen the percentage of patients with a HbA1c less than 7% reach 32.2%, from 15.6% at baseline, while the percentage of diabetes patients with blood pressure less than 130/80mm Hg has also doubled the baseline figure.
More exciting results are expected from practices now participating in Wave 3 who can build strongly on the learning and achievement of the previous waves.
The NPCC program is funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, and based on the improvement methodology implemented in the UK by the National Primary Care Development Team, now called the Improvement Foundation.
For more information on the NPCC, please visit the NPCC website at www.npcc.com.au
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