General practices continue to be at the frontline of COVID, having to respond rapidly, adopting new and flexible approaches to primary care while also rapidly implementing a COVID-safe practice environment.

During these times, SEMPHN has continued to be a trusted source of COVID information, providing health professionals access to regular and localised COVID-19 information, resources, digital solutions, clinical education opportunities, business continuity and infection control support.

• 1,168 health professionals received 96 emails via the COVID updates for health professionals newsletter
• 121 health professionals received 83 COVID updates via text message
• SEMPHN delivered 11 COVID lunch time information and vaccine webinars for health professionals with an attendance rate of approximately 80 people at each webinar.

A dedicated resource page for health professionals and consumers on the SEMPHN website continues to be a vital hub for the latest information and resources, providing direct links to the latest Government advice, forms, fact sheets, tender opportunities and health pathways.

SEMPHN’s Provider Support Team has been pivotal in supporting the ongoing needs of general practices during the pandemic. With limited face-to-face engagement possible, the team found alternative ways to support practices remotely. They also provided rapid-response support for digital solutions such as telehealth and video calls, so that general practices could continue to provide effective patient care.

“That’s brilliant, thank you! All the information you are sending though is wonderful regarding COVID in the workplace. I am putting together as much information as I can for our process and how we would continue operating remotely if we were to have a positive case.” –  Vanessa, Practice Manager Safety Beach Medical and Wellness Centre.

In 2020-21, SEMPHN established a dedicated COVID-19 special projects team to lead, manage and deliver government initiatives being rolled out across general practice and Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF).

This included supporting:

• Commonwealth funded GP respiratory clinics
• COVID vaccine readiness and rollout for general practices
• Notifications and information on the Commonwealth Government’s vaccine expressions of interest, rollout phases, vaccine advice from ATAGI and increases or decreases in vaccine availability
• Vaccine roll out for Residential Aged Care Facilities (RACF) workforce and residents
• The implementation of COVID-19 Positive Pathways for GPs to care for people who tested positive to COVID-19
• The delivery of online educational events and information sessions for general practices and RACFs.

Data as of 30 June 2021

Dr Sarah Lewis, Port Melbourne Respiratory Clinic

Digital Health improves patient care and efficiency, user experience and effectiveness of care delivery.

The Provider Support team at SEMPHN supports general practice, specialists and allied health through digital tools and platforms.  Digital platforms have been an effective solution for general practices to manage patient care during COVID and lockdowns. These include:

• POLAR
• Nellie
• E-referral, E-prescribing and E-ordering
• Video and Phone consults
• PRODA/HPOS (general practice business systems)

POLAR is a software platform SEMPHN offers free-of-charge to general practices across the catchment. It is useful for insights and planning across areas of clinical, business and accreditation processes.

In 2020-21, POLAR has been invaluable in helping practices to more-quickly identify their vulnerable patients and ensure their regular appointments such as screening and disease management, continue.

As practices juggled new and evolving information, POLAR was able to support patient care by extracting new reports, such as the COVID-19 vaccine planning report, to inform them of their patient’s vaccine status.

Key POLAR highlights

• Around 72% of practices (360) are using POLAR (compared to 316 in 2019-20)
• There are 41 log-ins to POLAR each day (compared to 32 in 2019-20)

SEMPHN’s automated text message service, Nellie, continued to support the mental health and wellbeing of individuals who were experiencing isolation and loneliness during Victoria’s lockdowns.

Nellie continued to support the health and wellbeing of people living in south east Melbourne during Victoria’s extended lockdowns.

While the automated, persona-based text messaging service was designed to provide continued health support for a patient’s following a consultation as part of their management plan, Nellie has since been able to support those who may feel isolated or anxious during COVID.

Nellie was also used during 2020-21 to support the organisation’s return to the office plan. Nellie was set up to send text messages to 92 staff members each morning to monitor the physical health of individuals and ensure no one displayed symptoms of COVID before attending the office.

“Before COVID hit, we were spending time talking to patients in clinic about Nellie and showing them on their phones how it would work and how they should interact with Nellie.  This really helped to get them set up and increase their confidence in using Nellie. The COVID protocols were really good (for the right people). Lots of our patients are socially isolated, so some of them really liked having regular contact from Nellie” – Practice Nurse

To find out more about SEMPHN’s digital platforms visit: https://www.semphn.org.au/resources/digital-health.html

Ensuring patients could still access primary health care, while also reducing the risk of community transmission of COVID-19, has been a challenging but critical step in the continuum of care for general practices and allied health care professionals. This has been especially relevant for vulnerable and hard to reach community members who require ongoing care.

Last year, SEMPHN supported the Australian Government’s decision to extend the telehealth MBS items until 31 December 2021. While telehealth is not new, it was not previously available for practitioners to claim through Medicare.

Since these changes, SEMPHN has been able to support practices who were using the bulk billed MBS telehealth items to access HealthDirect’s Video Call at no cost, giving them access to a dedicated link for their patients.

In 2020-21, SEMPHN supported High Street Medical Clinic in Prahran to use HealthDirect VideoCall as an option for patient consultation.

During this time, the clinic also decided to transition from paper-based to electronic referrals where possible.  SEMPHN supported them in troubleshooting some of the initial challenges in this transition.

“We recently had a hearing-impaired patient request an interpreter to support them during the consult,” said Practice Manager Terri O’Shannessey. “Being a video call made it quite easy to arrange and it also reassured us they were receiving the correct information and advice from the doctor.”

In June 2021, The Alfred Hospital reported that eight GPs from High Street Medical Clinic were using the electronic referral system when referring patients to their specialist clinics.