Care Pathways and Referral

The HealthPathways process

The HealthPathways process is led by GP clinical editors and is designed to involve all those who contribute to patient management. Consumers work alongside the care team. The key steps to the development of localised care pathways are as follows:

• Current evidence and best management is reviewed. Issues preventing or enabling the delivery of optimal care to patients are identified with the aim of co-designing solutions.
• A clinical working group, including GP clinical editors, specialists, nurses, allied health professionals (e.g. exercise physiology, podiatry) and a wider group of GPs, is developed. These health professionals have input into the development of this work.
• When published, the pathways will include clinical information on assessment and management of conditions, useful patient and clinical resources, and local referral information.

Example pathway – HealthPathways Melbourne: Low Back Pain

Why did we need a HealthPathway for Low Back Pain?

• High volume of patient complaints.
• Changing nature of the evidence base, release of new guidelines, or need for clarity on the model of care.
• Need for quality referrals to expedite first appointment to hospital outpatients.

What did general practitioners think?

“It’s a really common thing – around 90% of us will have back pain at some point in their life so it’s really important that we get treatment right,” – Dr Debra Wilson, General Practitioner.

What did specialists think?

“We were sitting here inside Royal Melbourne and all the GPs were out there, and we were just getting flooded with referrals. We said, we’ll help you develop the HealthPathway, because we see that as a way of helping GPs manage back pain within the community and improve their level of care of back pain patients” – Mr John Cunningham, Orthopaedic Surgeon

Example – Tasmanian HealthPathways

There are more than 660 live Tasmanian HealthPathways, with new and updated Pathways including pulmonary embolism, fibromyalgia, medications in Bipolar Disorder, and more.

Example pathway – Haemochromatosis

The haemochromatosis Tasmanian HealthPathway was consulted by more than 270 other health practitioners between November 2016 and March 2018.

It provides a good source of clear, reputable information about the condition to help a GP map out their patient’s journey forward.

What do Tasmanians GPs think?

“It’s so logically and succinctly laid out – what tests you need, who to refer to and contacts. When I start teaching registrars, the way I’m going to start is to say to them pick a complex medical condition, go to Tasmanian HealthPathways and teach me what they say.” – Dr Daniel Kulbac told Primary Health Matters magazine.