Many worry about the impact on the safe use of medicine, while the transfer of skills is another key issue with employees already leaving....
Professor Mark Morgan, Chair of RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care, also said the Deloitte report seems to focus on PBS savings as a metric for impact.
‘Is this reasonable?’ he told newsGP.
‘Where there is under-use of medication or investigations, increased PBS/MBS would represent success.
‘A more appropriate set of health outcomes would be the “quadruple bottom line” – clinical outcomes, cost of services, patient experience, provider experience.’
Professor Morgan also says the use of data is yet to be clarified, including from medical records created by GPs and maintained using software and hardware GPs have purchased.
He highlighted RACGP guidance about this data and its value for research, planning and continuous quality improvement.
‘GP data should not be released without understanding the purpose and motivations of the organisation requesting the data,’ Professor Morgan said.
‘NPS MedicineWise has data sharing agreements in place. The Commission does not yet have data sharing agreements in place.’
He said that GPs and the RACGP need to understand positive benefits for any data release.
‘Curated and analysed data from NPS MedicineWise was valued by many GPs and it was backed by a program of academic detailing,’ Professor Morgan said.
‘We do not yet know what the Commission intends to do with the data so we cannot yet advise practices whether or not to provide their data to the Commission.’
Health policy
General Practice
Quality use of medicines