Future Health Today: Pilot project at Altona North Medical Group and Shepparton Medical Centre
Project Details
Two million people visit a general practitioner each week. Information is constantly being collected that can be analysed to identify patients at risk of developing chronic disease. Future Health Today is a research project being undertaken by The University of Melbourne and Western Health, in partnership with participating general practices, that analyses information from general practices to develop technology that can enable the automated detection of chronic disease and chronic disease risk. This will provide new information about how chronic conditions should be treated, and new opportunities for earlier treatment.
Future Health Today is initially focusing on cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. The technological platform and tools integrate decision-support and pathways of care into a GP's everyday workflow. It is being developed to include other chronic diseases in the future.
Patron ID: PAT009
Project Lead:
A/Prof Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis
Overview:
Future Health Today e-technology prototype is a novel platform to extract primary care performance data for clinical audit and decision support to facilitate chronic disease prevention, management and quality improvement. It is a partnership between University of Melbourne and Western Health. The goal of Future Health Today (FHT) is to create a new standard-of-care for patients at risk, or diagnosed with chronic diseases, focused on chronic kidney disease (CKD), type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We have received funding from Melbourne Academic Centre for Health and the Paul Ramsay Foundation (please note that both of these funding sources are currently under embargo) to develop Future Health Today, with an initial focus on chronic kidney disease.
As part of this development, we will be piloting FHT at Altona North Medical Group (ANMG) and Shepparton Medical Centre in the second half of 2019, undertaking an implementation study and a quantitative analysis of data to explore the impact of FHT on case finding, diagnosis and management of CKD. ANMG and Shepparton Medical Centre are contributing data to Data for Decisions/Patron dataset. We wish to apply for access to the Patron dataset to allow us to undertake this important work which is required for the development of the prototype.
We will utilise the dataset in 2 ways.
1. The Patron dataset will be used to identify patients attending ANMG at risk of CKD or with a diagnosis of CKD. These patients will be re-identified in the practice and up to 10 recruited to participate in a qualitative study.
2. Data will be extracted at baseline and study completion (3-6 months post completion) to explore the impact of FHT. The data required includes information about age, gender, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander identification, pathology testing (tests ordered and results received), medication prescribed, blood pressure, body mass index (height and weight), smoking status, number of administrative and clinical encounters, Medicare Benefits Schedule item numbers claimed. This will help us to understand the impact of FHT on recording of risk factors for, and diagnosis of, CKD, proportion of people with risk factors that have had a kidney health check, proportion of patients with recorded diagnosis of CKD, and proportion of patients with CKD that are receiving appropriate pharmacological management.
3. The Patron data set will be used to create benchmarking reports so that participating practices can compare their progress in CKD detection and management to other practices. We would like to use the complete Patron dataset for this activity; this is important to:
a. protect the confidentiality of the two participating practices; and
b. provide an understanding of the breadth of CKD management and detection across practices.
Researchers
Chief Investigators
The Chief Investigators from The University of Melbourne and Western Health are nationally and internationally regarded researchers in conduct of radomised controlled trials with expertise in general practice, nephrology, computer and data engineering, statistics and health economics.
Associate Professor Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis
Associate Professor Craig Nelson (see the Western Health Chronic Disease Alliance)
Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, AC (Clinical Chief Investigator)
Dr Karyn Alexander (MACH Fellow)
Associate Investigators
Associate Professor Mark Taylor
Funding
Future Health Today has been made possible by philanthropic funding, and support from University of Melbourne and Western Health. If you are interested in being a partner so that this important work can continue, contact Research, Innovation and Commercial Engagement at The University of Melbourne.
Future Health Today is supported by a 2019 Melbourne Academic Centre for Health Medical Research Future Fund Rapid Applied Research Translation Grant and Fellowship (Dr Karyn Alexander).