Primary Health Care System Development

There are three programs of work within this stream:

1. Primary Health Care System Development

is concerned with developing and evaluating the conceptual frameworks, infrastructure and capacity needed for a strong Primary Health Care system. Recent work includes developing conceptual frameworks for PHC, reviewing national performance indicators, contributing to the development of indicators for Divisions of General Practice, reviewing the contribution of national programs to more integrated and effective Primary Health Care and a systematic review of initiatives to create more integrated PHC.

2. Improving integration of services and continuity of care

is concerned with the way that different parts of Primary Health Care work together and with hospitals, community care and other health related services to provide comprehensive and continuous care. Recent work includes a series of studies of GP-hospital integration, an evaluation of integrated mental health care in the far west of NSW, evaluations of Better Outcomes in Mental health and a systematic review of strategies for integrating care.

3. Access to Primary Health Care

is concerned with patterns of access to quality Primary Health Care. Recent work has included studies of access to primary health care for people with diabetes and asthma, using data from population health surveys. We are now beginning to investigate record linkage with hospital and other data sets.