GP GATEWAY PROJECT

The GP Gateway project was a joint development of the Illawarra Division of General Practice (IDGP) and the Illawarra Area Health Service (IAHS).

The project was made possible by the financial support received from the Australian Commonwealth Government (Department of Health and Aged Care) through the Australian Divisions of General Practice National Innovations Funding Pool (Round Two).

The project commenced on the 31 July 2000 and concluded on 30 August 2001.

Aim

The GP Gateway project aimed to provide an interface, based on web-technology, where GPs were able to view appropriate information about their patient's hospital stay to assist the GP with managing the patient's ongoing care. GPs would have an agreed accreditation process with the Illawarra Area Health Service that would give the GPs authority to access data held by the hospitals within the Area.

Outcomes

The project was able to deliver on its objectives and was implemented on time and within budget.

The major outcomes of the project were:

  • improved continuum of care for patients through sharing of appropriate patient information,

  • ability to inform NSW Health of issues involved with the implementation of the public health privacy guidelines.

The Website

The GP Gateway was the name given to the intranet site where GPs were able to authenticate and view appropriate electronic patient information available from the IAHS. If the patient nominated the GP and granted consent at the time of admission, the patient's investigation results and booking details for that occasion of service were available for viewing by the nominated GP.

The website was designed by GPs for GPs. The emphasis of the design was on clear concise information presented in summarised lists with the facility to drill-down to further details as required. The referral forms and notification forms were designed by the various departmental staff within the IAHS including Community Health and Antenatal Shared Care in conjunction with local GPs.

The IAHS hosted the GP Gateway website on their intranet. GPs had the facility to dialup to the IAHS network to browse patient information. A feasibility study is underway to detail the requirements for GPs to access patient information using the internet.

Information available on the website

Much of the patient information was distributed in disparate systems. The IAHS used a series of tools to facilitate access to the various sources of patient information.

The result was a website where GPs could view:

  • patient history,

  • surgery,

  • discharge referrals,

  • radiology reports,

  • pathology results,

  • patient movements.

There was also a facility for the GPs to send notification of patient consultations by e-mail to the Antenatal Shared Care Co-ordinator, send referrals to the Emergency Department and to notify Medical Records of a change to patient demographics or that the patient was now deceased.

The demonstration website, using the details of a fictitious patient, stimulated discussion about the concept of the future electronic health record.

Reports

First interim report February 2001 [PDF 184KB]

Second interim report May 2001 [PDF 143KB]

FinalReportAug2001 August 2001 [PDF 225KB]

Evaluation report August 2001 [PDF 84KB]

Executive summary August 2001 [PDF 48KB]