Abstract
Introduction:
The suburb of Oran Park in south west Sydney is undergoing rapid housing development, population increase and demographic change which in turn, drives major changes in the area’s population characteristics, their health service needs, and provides an opportunity to strategically evaluate and address those needs.
Practice Change:
The establishment of the Oran Park Family Health (OPFH) Integrated Primary Care Centre (IPCC) seeks to provide multidisciplinary, evidence-based and patient centred healthcare at primary care level. It is a unique partnership between the Local Health District , Primary Health Network, University and private practice stakeholders.
Aim and theory of change:
The primary aim of OPFH is to provide relevant and effective primary and integrated care services to the locality as an alternative to and prevention of the use of hospital services. Its evaluation adopts an in-depth case study approach, collecting quantitative and qualitative data to determine whether the establishment of OPFH is associated with change in the use of hospital services and what may be the underlying causative factors.
Population and Stakeholders:
The service needs of the catchment will be driven by resident population growth with its associated socio-economic and epidemiological characteristics, and will be monitored via the evaluation arm of the project.
Timeline:
Started in 2017 – prospective long-term
Highlights:
The OPFH baseline evaluation has been completed:
• Semi-structured interviews – clients (Group 1) and stakeholders & clinicians (Group 2)
• Practice records – define patient population, service use patterns and health needs.
Group 1 Perspectives (n=20)
Age range of 24-70 years (median = 38). Patient awareness of service integration was low, although they reported that clinicians and support staff work well as a team. Key themes identified: 1) ability of OPFH to meet patient demand; 2) need for additional services; and 3) desire for continuity of care with their preferred GP.
Group 2 Perspectives (n=13)
The group’s shortlist of priority service needs at OPFH has some overlap with patients’ service requests such as imaging, paediatrics/child health, physiotherapy, and mental health.
Sustainability:
Outcomes from the evaluation are fed-back to the OPFH and IPCC governance to address any program development changes so as to tailor the delivery of services to the population needs.
Transferability:
The learning of this initiative can be easily transfer to other Local Health District.
Discussion:
This initial stage of evaluation indicates that while patients are not highly aware of the integrated model that underpins delivery of care at OPFH, they see the need for a greater volume and variety of services at the centre to serve the rapidly growing, predominantly young population. Stakeholder feedback also highlighted the need for a variety of services at OPFH, although the specific services prioritised by each group differed substantially.
Lessons:
In future stages interview data will be obtained from external providers referring clients to OPFH (Group 3) and practice data linkage with Hospital/District records will allow patients’ use of primary care and hospital services.