Sydney North’s symposium and workshop was a great display of the Harbour City’s appetite for HealthPathways.

The symposium, held on 10 May, was attended by almost unprecedented numbers of local hospital consultants and was supported throughout the day by influential leaders from the Sydney North Primary Health Network and the Northern Sydney Local Health District.

Over 80 delegates from across the local health system – from practice managers to exercise physiologists – were present at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management for the event.

Cynthia Stanton, General Manager, Primary Care Advancement & Integration says they are really excited to be starting the HealthPathways journey with such strong interest and support from local clinicians and health district colleagues.

"We think this initiative will have a significant and positive impact on helping our local clinicians navigate the local health system to provide the best care for their communities the first time, every time.” 

Chief HealthPathways Adviser Andy Froggatt agreed the high level of attendance was a good indicator of future engagement in the program:

 “To have so many clinical leaders as well as senior managers give up this amount of time for a  HealthPathways event was not only incredible to see, but gives me every confidence that HealthPathways will be a great success in Sydney North.” 

Speakers included HealthPathways Chief Clinical Editor Dr Graham McGeoch, HealthPathways  Regional Group Lead Jenna Panckhurst, and members of the Sydney HealthPathways team who talked about the real-world experience of producing clinical pathways.

Graham says everyone he spoke to had something positive to say about the event and the potential for Sydney North HealthPathways to improve the local patient experience.

“I have every confidence the Sydney North HealthPathways team will be stars and it was great to hear about the support they have from the neighbouring HealthPathways teams in Sydney and the rest of NSW.”

Above: Dr Magdalen Campbell (GP and Chair, Sydney North Health Network), Dr Andrew Montague (Director Operations at NSLHD), David Grant (General Manager – Commissioning & Partnerships), Andy Froggatt (Chief HealthPathways Adviser), Cynthia Stanton (General Manager – Primary Care Advancement & Integration), Dr Graham McGeoch (HealthPathways Chief Clinical Editor), and Lynelle Hales (Chief Executive Officer)

The next day saw Graham run a workshop that modelled a work group developing a pathway about dementia.

“We learned of the large number of great services in North Sydney, many of which aren’t widely known about or used by all the general practice teams. We hope the cognitive impairment pathway will help to join up the community and medical services much more effectively.”

HealthPathways Writing Team Manager Melissa Taylor says the workshop benefitted from Jenna’s presence and that of Sydney HealthPathways’ Programme Lead Paul Bennett and Clinical Editor Dr Kate George.

“They were able to give in-depth answers to questions about the localisation process and support the entire workshop to give the Sydney North Work Programme Team and the members of their Dementia Work Group loads a great introduction to HealthPathways.”