Team-based care initiatives
Expand your GP-led multidisciplinary team
Brisbane South PHN are working with general practices to expand their clinal care team by integrating on-site practice pharmacists and social workers into their inter-professional teams.
We understand the significant impact of workforce shortages across Brisbane South. One sustainable strategy to address these shortages is through encouraging skill mix changes and expanding the GP-led multidisciplinary team.
Allowing clinicians to work top-of-scope by supporting skill mix changes such as task substitution leads to improved job satisfaction and increased efficiency.
Pharmacists in general practice
Brisbane South PHN has been growing the practice pharmacist workforce in our region. After an initial pilot stage, Brisbane south practices have maintained their practice pharmacist/s beyond the initial seed-funding provided and proven that the practice pharmacist role is financially sustainable and helps to improve care. Brisbane South PHN aim to continue this success by scaling up the practice pharmacist workforce with a vision to become the safest medicines region in Australia.
If you are a general practice interested in integrating a pharmacist into your inter-professional team, please register your interest at support@bsphn.org.au.
Social workers in general practice
In 2023 we are planning to pilot social workers within general practice teams. We will provide support in assisting with workforce integration, financial sustainability and building workforce capability.
If you are a general practice interested in integrating a social worker into your inter-professional team, please register your interest at support@bsphn.org.au.
Shared medical appointments in general practice
Shared medical appointments are where a cohort of patients with similar health concerns attend appointments together to receive education and clinical advice. The benefits to patients are:
- access to timely, tailored healthcare for their needs
- an ability to engage with different members of multi-disciplinary health teams during shared appointments
- opportunities to learn and gain support from similar peers
- support with building knowledge, skills, and confidence to manage their health and health care (i.e., patient activation).
Brisbane South PHN and Inala Primary Care developed a Shared Medical Appointment Toolkit to support general practice teams in implementing shared medical appointments for patients—including practical templates for general practice to adopt this model.
If your practice is interested to implement shared medical appointments and seeks support, please get in contact with us via support@bsphn.org.au.