| Project Objectives / Summary:
Health Service Directories are recognised as a valuable tool for all health professionals to assist awareness in the range of support services available to them in providing best practice care to their patients and clients. Consumers of health services also utilise service directories to assist them to access the most appropriate service. Most Health Service Directories carry significant disadvantages, namely being out of date before publication or soon after, maintenance of paper based directories requires significant resources to update and redistribute and is cumbersome. An electronic directory was what was needed. The project goal was: To undertake a feasibility study of a regional on-line Health Service Directory for the Loddon Mallee region of the Victorian Department of Human Services.
The project aims were to:
- Undertake a review of current Health Service Directories;
- Identify (or develop) an appropriate format for an on-line Health Service Directory;
- Identify (or develop) appropriate systems for collecting necessary data;
Identify and consult key stakeholders;
- Develop an implementation plan for a regional on-line Health Service Directory; and
- Prepare a submission for further innovations pool funding to implement regional 'on-line' Health Service Directory.
Project Collaboration:
- Victorian Department of Human Services
- Loddon Mallee Division of General Practice
- Central Highlands Division of General Practice
- General Practice Divisions of Victoria
Project Outcomes:
After recognising that the issues being addressed by this project were of significance at the State level, the project steering committee invited General Practice Divisions of Victoria to facilitate further consultation with IT Officers from all Victorian Divisions.
Research of on-line directories highlighted that most did not address the needs or requirements of the key stakeholders, ie for specialist and hospital information. A representative of GPDV liaised with the Computer Science Department, Monash University to develop a generic on-line Health Service Directory which would be suitable for all Divisions to populate with their own data. The University developed a business case for the establishment of a generic service directory.
Recommendations:
- That all Victorian Divisions should participate in the development of a Statewide On-line Services Directory.
- That all Victorian Divisions should liaise closely with their DHS region regarding information and access to the Better Health channel.
- That all Victorian Divisions should liaise closely with the successful operator of the Carelink Service Centre in their DHS region.
- That all Victorian Divisions as key stakeholders should carefully assess the cost and resources required before establishing or being involved in a Health Services Directory and/or its ongoing maintenance.
- That all Divisions should assess the training needs of GPs and staff to maximise their use of the On-line Health Services Directory.
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