Our quality improvement program

Quality improvement program officers are the direct contact between practices and NWMPHN. Their role is to support practices to explore and identify improvement opportunities, guide practices through improvement methodologies, and review and monitor progress.

As key contacts, quality improvement program officers can help practices navigate policy reforms (such as those related to My Health Record, the Practice Incentives Program and SafeScript) and get the most out of their clinical and business systems.

Our team can also help practices maximise available funding and navigate the Medicare Benefits Schedule, HealthPathways Melbourne and accreditation and practice software systems.

Watch our video to learn more.

All accredited general practices are offered CAT PLUS software (CAT4 and Topbar) tools and training, held in-practice or at our offices. This software and support are free.

To support practices to meet the criteria for the Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement (PIP QI) incentive, we provide practices with a PIP QI report, derived from each practice’s deidentified data. These reports, distributed each quarter, allow practices to see how they are tracking against the PIP 10 Quality Improvement Measures.

We give all practices the opportunity to develop a tailored 12-month practice plan with specific priorities, tools and objectives that matter to your practice. This helps us to work with you in a way that is relevant and helpful to your practice.

Our Practice Partnership Plan (.docx) is simple to complete, and we will help you do this. By identifying your practice’s needs, NWMPHN can better support you and your practice team for the next 12 months.

To complement the Practice Partnership Plan, we have also launched a QI Record (.docx). This simple and intuitive document makes it easy for you to record and review your QI activities. It is also very useful should you ever be audited, as it provides a record of your participation in quality improvement.

Completing the QI Record can also assist you to meet the requirements for the Practice Incentives Program Quality Improvement (PIP QI) Incentive. PIP QI has two components. Practices must:

• participate in continuous quality improvement
• provide their PIP eligible data set to their local Primary Health Network.

We have a range of quality improvement activities covering a variety of topics.  Your practice can work through these independently, with support from your quality improvement program officer.

Visit our QI Toolkits page and our QI Activities hub for more information.

As part of our quality improvement program, we run intensive projects several times each year on specific topics. Through these, practices complete a structured six-month quality improvement project that supports them to engage their practice team and make measurable improvements.

Each intensive project provides:

• in-practice support to guide you through whole-of-practice quality improvement activities
• three collaborative workshops where you can share your ideas, challenges and successes
• project-specific data reports to help you track your progress
• opportunities to showcase your activities and be recognised as improvement leaders.

Visit our QI Projects page for updates on past, present and future QI projects.