Abstract
GPNI was “born” in March 2020 to help primary care teams in the rapidly changing clinical environment of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The outcome was a primary care knowledge hub for NI which includes weekly webinars providing “cutting-edge” systems and clinical updates. Since its inception GPNI has served over 80,000 users with over 750,000 pages of clinical or system information relevant to their frontline role. It has a mailing list of >3000.
GPNI is accepted as a highly effective regional communications platform, improving access and dissemination of information for all Primary Care teams. It has been commended by stakeholders including Health Trusts, NIMDTA, FSU, Dept of Health, and Public Health Agency (PHA) as a conduit of information and education which supports both primary and secondary care staff across NI. The quest for knowledge and specific information/guidance, continues to change as we move beyond the pandemic. GPNI has been powerful and effective due to its impartiality. It is a trusted third party for primary care team members across Northern Ireland, not driven by politics, a specific profession or locality.
GPNI has collaborated with Voluntary and Community Sector organisations such as NSPCC, Women’s Aid and Simon Community as well as the Prison, Ambulance and Police services (most recently on Human trafficking and domestic abuse) enhancing inter organisational knowledge and working with the aim of improving cohesion and continuity for patients at these respective interfaces.
GPNI has delivered more than 150 webinars. Sessions are planned/delivered by a range of healthcare professionals. Health Trust “Share the Learning” events, DOH information sessions and PHA training have all been hosted by GPNI. Webinar content ranges from clinical updates to sharing practice improvement ideas, to providing mandatory training updates such as QI, safeguarding, cervical sample taker, vaccinations. Formal webinar feedback demonstrates consistently ≥8.5/10 rating for event overall, and ≥4.5/5 for speaker/topic/event organisation. Examples of collaborative learning include several webinar mini-series on paediatric conditions delivered to a primary and secondary care audience.
The unique benefits of our GPNI webinar format include.
•Content responsive to urgent and emerging needs.
•Ability to function as a platform for practice staff training across NI.
•Option to view recorded webinars.
•Value for Money - reduction in training delivery costs as teams learn together.
•Inter-professional learning offering opportunities to build a regional GP community of practice.
The aim is to restructure the website in the coming months to ensure we continue to deliver high value clinical and organisational information to our practice teams. This will include resource areas and Information “Hubs.” We want to share best practice amongst HCPs in the community and to allow the learning from the MDT “roll out” to GP Practices in specific areas to be shared across NI in advance of anticipated expansion of these teams.
We will continue to provide high-quality education to our multidisciplinary audience in primary care, rather than “siloed” learning. This allows greater understanding of roles/expertise and promotes a more integrated workforce and better patient care.