Services

An overview of the programs that the Division provides is below.

For more detailed information, click on the relevant program area in the In This Section panel on this page.

Aged care 
Residents of aged care facilities often have complex care needs. The Division's highly successful Aged Care GP Panels program brought together GPs and aged care facility staff to improve access to and quality of care for residents. Funding of the Aged Care GP Panels initiative has now been redirected to the Aged Care Access initiative.

Business development
The Business Development Team has expertise in a range of areas including practice nursing, practice management, e-health and chronic disease. The team supports business planning within practices, assists with chronic disease identification and systems to improve outcomes, and facilitates networking, training and support for general practice staff.

Clinical risk management
The Limited Adverse Event Screening (LAOS) program is provided in Victorian rural regions via Divisions of General Practice. It involves objective review of de identified patient records by trained general practitioners. A reference panel reports back to the Division's GPs and the CEOs of participating hospitals.

Continuing professional development (CPD)
The Division's CPD program targets special interest areas such as radiology, mens' and womens' health, anaesthetics and other topics as identified. CPD points are also earned by GPs through attendance at practice management conferences and meetings, participation in Small Learning Groups, NPS practice visits and various reference panel involvements that are supported or arranged by the Division.

Youth health
Help 4U provides workshops at schools for Year 9 and 10 secondary students. Facilitated by a GP and other health professionals such as a school nurse, the program builds relationships with young people at a time in their lives when they can both most need help, but find it most difficult to reach out. The Division schedules and pays GPs to attend Workshops, and provides facilitator training, manuals and kits.

Home medicines review
The Division contracts John Ware a Consultant Pharmacist as the HMR Facilitator to advise and support GPs and Pharmacists with new medication management programs. The Home Medicines Review initiative funds accredited pharmacists to undertake home visits to patients referred by their GP, to audit medication being consumed. This includes all prescribed medicines, complementary products, alcohol and over the counter medications they are currently using. This information is reported back to the patient’s GP to with early detection and management of medicine related problems.

Immunisation
The major focus of the immunisation program is participation of general practitioners in the General Practice Immunisation Incentive (GPII) scheme to improve overall immunisation coverage rates to >90% of children fully immunised under seven years of age.

GP recruitment & retention
The Division plays an important role in sustaining and increasing the general practice workforce in the region. Services include targeted recruitment, locum and support services to assist GPs to gain adequate locum cover, facilitating combined after hours rosters and other initiatives and GP health & wellbeing programs.

Mental health
The Access To Allied Psychological Services (ATAPS) program provides clinical care for common mental health problems. The Division, through an innovative and successful partnership with Northeast Health Wangaratta, provides mental health services via the Integrated Primary Mental Health Service which co locates clinicians in 25 general practices in North East Victoria.

Mental health services for drought affected communities
Drought is severely impacting communities in rural Australia. In 2008, the Division received funding under the Commonwealth funded Mental Health Support for Drought Affected Communities, which is used to employ a community support worker. Drought program services include crisis counselling, giving people options for getting help, and working with GPs and other service providers to deliver services and support.

More Allied Health Services (MAHS)
MAHS is a federal government initiative to provide allied health care in rural areas. The Division works with allied health professionals to provide a wide range of services to the 18 towns in the North East, including but not limited to dieticians, physiotherapists, podiatrists and registered nurses (asthma, diabetes, and generalist educators). Patients access these services through referral by their GP.

National Prescribing Service
Quality Use of Medicines (QUM) promotes safe and effective prescribing and use of medicines. It provides independent and evidence based information about medicines to health professionals and consumers, ongoing training for program facilitators and resources for general practices.

 Last updated 17 November 2008