Actual performance achieved against Guidelines, Standards and Aims

Since the last progress report development of the Australian Point-of-Care Practitioner's Network (APPN) has continued according to plan.

Activities and achievements since the last report are:

• The management group of Andrew St John, Rosy Tirimacco, Phil Tideman, Tony Prior and Tony Badrick continues to operate through regular Emails and periodic teleconferences. In particular Rosy Tirimacco and Andrew St John are in regular contact concerning development of the APPN site and interactions with key stakeholders.
• We have updated the Advisory Board in June via a summary powerpoint presentation Management
• Limei (May) Siew as APPN scientist and Karen Clothier have continued the development of the APPN site.
• In relation to development of the site including competencies, the following has occurred:
  • Modules for point-of-care tests for cardiac markers (including troponin, BNP and D-Dimer) have been added to.
  • All new content includes any relevant guidelines that may exist.
• The average number of monthly visitors in March to June was approximately 900.
• As of June 18 the number of registrants was 1343 and this includes 170 GPs/GP registrars (Appendix 1)
• The competency testing process continues to work well with a steady increase in numbers. A total of 1009 competency assessments have now been performed and the proportion of competency tests passed continues to increase as material content is increased. Total project statistics can be found in Appendix 2.
• We have conducted two further webinars on Diabetes and Heart Failure which attracted 52 and 51 sites respectively (many of which connected as a practice team), and both included 13 GPs that completed the CPD process to attain RACGP points. The feedback we received for both events was very positive.
• A POCT Seminar was held in Sydney which focussed on chronic disease and was attended by 85 people including several POCT equipment suppliers. The programme included talks on several APPN related activities such as the development of the education modules for INR and Lipids.
• Rosy Tirimacco and Andrew St John met with Stephen Clark of AGPAL to discuss how GP practices might be accredited. We indicated that the majority of the components of accreditation could be achieved via the web with a relatively small checklist to be completed at the time of AGPAL inspection. We agreed to document what we foresee as the complete process and to investigate ways that this could be trialled to test for its effectiveness.
• Further discussions have taken place on the design of an EQA scheme that will address the wider issue of patient safety including the use of patient case histories that would accompany samples for analysis thereby providing GP education as well as a measure of analytical performance.
• A trial is being designed to test the effectiveness of the APPN model of support compared to that used in the GP trial. ALERE will supply upgraded Cholestech instruments to 10 GP sites, 5 of which will use the APPN model and 5 with GP trial type support. We will compare the analytical performance, error and call rates in the two groups to get a measure of the relative effectiveness of the two models.
• Website review and redesign –The website has undergone significant changes to be more user friendly (Appendix 3). This includes:
  • Attaining your CPD according to your profession
  • Accessing chronic disease modules integrated with competencies and CPD programs, evaluations and issuing of certificates
  • Easy tracking of modules to show what is available, in progress or completed
  • Ensuring device competency is attained annually
  • Sends email reminders and flags competencies that are up for renewal
  • Obtaining CPD for webinars
  • Capability to collate external CPD using the APPN CPD record
• Since the last report other presentations involving APPN include:
  • Point of Care training and testing at Ceduna, SA (June 2012)
  • Presentation for flight nurses CME at the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Adelaide, SA (June 2012)
• Queries continue to be sent by email and several requests for technical help have been received through the HELP line.
• A full list of CPD points related to APPN activities for both GPs and nurses can be found in Appendix 5.