Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (EMPHN) invites Tender Responses for the provision of consulting services as the Audit and Feedback (A&F) Research and Development Partner in accordance with the requirements of this Request for Tender (RFT).

Background:

One of EMPHN’s objectives is to support GPs in its catchment to improve the quality of care. To that end, EMPHN has established a mechanism to collect de-identified clinical data and would like to establish a program to feed these data back to GPs in a meaningful way. This need has been highlighted in the recent EMPHN GP engagement survey conducted, wherein GPs reported unmet clinical needs from the PHN. EMPHN currently has 445 general practices within its catchment.

Current State:

EMPHN has access to clinical data from 373 of 445practices (84%) in its catchment. While EMPHN provides practice managers quarterly PIPQI reports, there are no GP-specific products. Consequently, the available clinical data that offer important insights for clinical improvements are underutilized.

Meanwhile, GPs face increased CPD requirements (both hours and intensity), with GPs often reporting challenges in addressing the requirement to review performance and measure outcomes, exacerbated by declining CPD offerings due to closure of organisations such as NPS MedicineWise.

Program Purpose and Objectives:

This program aims to create an A&F platform using available clinical data to develop a new CPD opportunity through clinical audits, simultaneously both engaging GPs, and enhancing care quality. The target audience is GPs, and the intervention will complement existing EMPHN practice initiatives to promote whole-of-practice improvements. The longer-term vision is to create continuous improvement ecosystem in partnership with EMPHN, the research community, and practices to match real world problems with research capability. This can be achieved by establishing an implementation lab that continuously improves output as new evidence is generated.

Through this program, we seek to:

• Improve the processes and outcomes of care provided by GPs in Eastern Melbourne.
• Experiment with A&F features and QI offerings to continuously evolve the program.
• Build the evidence base for A&F, in the form of behaviour change, clinical effectiveness, as well as understand how it works, for whom, in what contexts and circumstances, and at what costs.
• Create strategic alignment between EMPHN, LHNs, clinicians, consumers, and research community to optimise the use of practice data in our catchment.

The intended outcome of this RFT is to design and establish an audit and feedback program, culminating in the formative evaluation of 2 pilot clinical audits, with the option to complete more. Note, this activity is intended to be non-punitive, instead helping clinicians assess their own practice in a reflective and supportive environment.

This RFT will require tenderers to lodge their responses via online form. Please ensure you read all parts of the RFT to understand the process for lodging a response.