Australia’s largest private health insurer, Medibank Private, together with the Australian Divisions of General Practice (ADGP), has launched the first of a series of new active electronic templates on the GP Medical Director software.
The Complete Primary Care (CPC) templates, developed with the assistance of ADGP, are fully interactive, and utilise such information as patients’ basic details, medical history, previous referrals to specialists, and radiology and pathology results already contained in the patient’s record within Medical Director.
The templates help to minimise the “red-tape” that has until now hindered many GPs from using the new Chronic Care items, such as asthma and mental health, listed on the Medical Benefit Schedule (MBS).
These items enable patients with complex health problems to have longer and more detailed consultations with their GP.
The new templates extract data directly from the patient’s record within the Medical Director software, improving GP productivity by up to 75 per cent, allowing them to offer a more patient-focussed consultation.
Both the ADGP and Medibank Private consider that providing GPs with the technical support to complement the new MBS items, will enable GPs to provide more effective management of their patients and help prevent complex medical conditions from escalating.
The CPC templates are accessible through the Medibank Private GP Resource Centre within Medical Director.
Medibank Private Director, Dr Michael Bollen, is confident the latest addition to the GP Resource Centre will lead to better health outcomes for patients visiting GPs - including Medibank Private members.
“These new templates are exciting as they will help GPs to assist our members to maintain better health, " Dr Bollen said.
“Medibank Private believes it is important to support GPs to help maintain and improve the health of our members. We believe these new templates will help achieve this aim for both our members and the broader Australian community,” he said.
Dr Bollen said Medibank Private is also working to complement the existing doctor-patient relationship through the development and piloting of its Member Wellbeing Program, a community-based program designed to assist GPs in the management of Medibank Private members with chronic illnesses and so minimise the need for hospitalisation.
“We also aim to provide our members with consumer health information that will lead to better health knowledge and management through Medibank Private’s alliances with Cochrane Collaboration, the National Asthma Council, the National Heart Foundation, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and depressioNet”, he said.
GPs will be made aware of the software’s availability and enhanced services through GP networks, such as the fortnightly ADGP electronic newsletter.