Improvements in pathway quality and the efficiency of localising and reviewing pathways are key motivators for a new Streamliners project called Base HealthPathways.

The project, which is in its early phases, will see a core set of generic pathways designed to be easier and more cost-efficient to localise. Base pathways are being developed by a team of expert clinical editors and technical writers based at Streamliners, working closely with the Canterbury HealthPathways team  

The pathways will include some example Canterbury content, but will exclude content that is only relevant in Canterbury.

Eventually, new regions will start localising from Base HealthPathways while Canterbury Community HealthPathways will act as a real-world example of how to develop and localise the information. Existing regions will use Base HealthPathways as a guide when reviewing pathways.

Dr Kieran Holland, Clinical Lead - HealthPathways Design, presented the Base HealthPathways project to the community at the 2016 HealthPathways Conference. He says Base HealthPathways aims to not only make localisation and reviewing easier, but improve the overall quality of HealthPathways through collaboration.

"Once a core set of pathways is in place the aim is for these to become a focus for community collaboration. If the knowledge and experience of the whole community can be shared via base pathways this will increase the quality and efficiency of pathway development over time, and save each region from reinventing the wheel. We need to retain the important local variation in pathways but reduce unnecessary and avoidable variation over time."

Dr Holland cautioned that it'll take time to develop a core set of pathways, but said the process will be assisted by the new HealthPathways Style Manual. The manual is being developed in tandem with Base HealthPathways and is expected to influence pathway quality after it begins to be rolled out next year.