What PHC RIS achieved in 2009: highlights from the Annual Report

The 2009 PHC RIS Annual Report will be available at the Primary Health Care Research Conference in Darwin later this month as well as on-line. These highlights indicate what a productive year we had.

Generate

• Sent out PHC RIS eBulletin weekly to 1 839 subscribers
• Undertook an applied research project to establish the contribution of primary health care research to health reform processes in Australia
• Completed three rapid response research projects for the Department on topics of policy relevance
• Evaluated the extent to which the Researcher Development Program impacted on knowledge, attitudes and practice in relation to research
• Published the bi-monthly newsletter PHC RIS infonet, which was sent toover 1 000 hard copy subscribers and over 1 200 electronic subscribers
• Produced a Summary Data report on the Annual Survey of Divisions 2007–08
• Produced the first Divisions Performance Indicator reports by analysing data from national Performance Indicators and the Annual Survey of Divisions.

Manage

• Continually updated and enhanced the design and functionality of the website which, in 2009, had average monthly hits of 39 864, over 8 000 more than the monthly hits in 2008
• Merged Roadmap Of Australian primary health care Research (ROAR) profiles with ROAR projects and 2009 GP & PHC Research Conference abstracts, bringing the total number of ROAR profiles to just over 2 500
• Responded to over 2 000 enquiries from stakeholders by phone, email and in person
• Supported Divisions Networks and State Based Organisations by enhancing the planning and reporting on-line system.

Share

• Distributed over 500 copies of Snapshot of Australian primary health care research 2009, which also had 434 downloads from the PHC RIS website
• Produced seven electronic issues of RESEARCH ROUNDup
• Published five peer reviewed journal articles
• Convened the GP & PHC Research Conference with the theme, Driving Change, in Melbourne 15–17 July 2009 - over 450 delegates attended to hear from 150 speakers from Australia and overseas about primary health care research, evaluation and development.
• Conducted and evaluated a knowledge brokering project for the Department as the basis for further work, in collaboration with APHCRI
• Conducted a stakeholder survey to assess awareness and usefulness of PHC RIS paper-based and web-based resources
• Organised consultation workshops in five Australian States for phase three of the PHCRED Strategy
• Facilitated an exchange of information and knowledge between researchers and policy advisors by convening three knowledge brokering meetings.

The full report will soon be available from <www.phcris.org.au>