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RACGP to host a primary care experience day for international health conference


Amanda Lyons


6/09/2018 2:29:34 PM

The experience day offers an immersive general practice event and a chance for delegates from different areas of healthcare to share knowledge and perspectives.

The International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare will be held from 10–12 September in Melbourne. (Image: Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre)
The International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare will be held from 10–12 September in Melbourne. (Image: Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre)

The International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare (the Forum), which will take place at the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Centre next week, has a long history.
 
Organised by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), the Forum has been held in Europe for over 20 years, and the Asia-Pacific for three. This year’s event is the first to ever be held in Australia and features a Primary Care Experience Day (PCED) that will be hosted at the RACGP head office in Melbourne on Monday 10 September.
 
Dr Paresh Dawda, a GP, academic and key organiser of the Forum and PCED, told newsGP that its key purpose is for delegates to come together and share their experiences.
 
‘It’s very much about how we can improve quality and patient safety in healthcare, and countries and organisations sharing and learning from each other,’ he said.
 
The Forum has traditionally been more focused on the hospital system, but recent years have seen a growing acknowledgement of the importance of primary care.
 
‘We’ve been pushing for a greater degree of primary care content and recognition that quality healthcare is about integrating systems,’ Dr Dawda explained.
 
Dr Dawda believes there are some very important changes facing contemporary general practice that require serious discussion and engagement.
 
‘Healthcare systems, be they in Australia or anywhere in the world, are struggling with sustainability and meeting the needs of a population that’s growing older, with everything that goes along with that; chronic diseases, multimorbidity and so on,’ he said.
 
‘So how do we move general practice from its conception, in an era when infections and non-communicable conditions were much more prevalent, to now, where populations are older and what we’re seeing is generally much more complex?
 
‘We’re still stuck with the paradigms of short appointments and funding models aligned to dealing with discrete episodes, rather than dealing with patients over long timeframes.’

Paresh-Dawda_Profile_Hero-(1).jpgDr Paresh Dawda is a GP, academic and key organiser of the Forum and the Primary Care Experience Day.
 
The Primary Care Experience Day is designed to enable participants to engage with these types of questions, with a practical, immersive experience in general practice in the morning followed by discussion in the afternoon.
 
‘Delegates will do site visits at one of three choices: a Department of General Practice at Monash University, South East Melbourne Primary Health Network, or the Emerald Medical Centre, a practice doing innovative things around healthcare quality and safety,’ Dr Dawda said.
 
‘They will come back to the college for some lunch, and also networking.
 
‘Then, in the afternoon, all three groups will have a facilitated debrief at the college so people can learn from the sites they visited and reflect back on those experiences.’
 
Prior to the debrief, however, the delegates will receive presentations from Dr Harry Nespolon, RACGP President-elect, and Leanne Wells, Chief Executive of the Consumer’s Health Forum.
 
‘The idea is to put forward some thought-provoking ideas around quality and safety in healthcare from a consumer and patient perspective, but also from the [general practice] profession’s perspective,’ Dr Dawda explained.
 
‘So participants will receive some stimulus around those two perspectives and reflect on the site visits, and then share those reflections and their experiences from their own health systems or countries, and how these influence what we do in primary care and general practice.’
 
Dr Dawda, who asked the RACGP for its involvement in the Primary Care Experience Day, is very pleased his invitation was accepted.
 
‘I felt there was a really good opportunity for the college, as the key professional body for primary care, to play a role and showcase the professional perspective to quality and safety,’ he said.

Dr Zena Burgess, Chief Executive of the RACGP, told newsGP the college was more than happy to participate and viewed the event as a great opportunity.
 
‘The Primary Care Experience day will be an exciting chance for the RACGP to connect with passionate healthcare leaders and practitioners from the Asia-Pacific region and share ideas about how we can improve outcomes for patients and communities,’ she said.



British Medical Journal International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare primary care experience day


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