Cutting the cake to celebrate: (left) Vivien Wright, Tasmania HealthPathways Clinical Editor; and (right) Catherine Spiller, Tasmania HealthPathways Lead.

Tasmania HealthPathways recently marked their fifth birthday and launched their mobile-friendly site in style, celebrating with no less than three cakes.

The milestone was celebrated at four events earlier this month - at the Primary Health Tasmania offices in Hobart, Launceston, and Ulverstone, and at Streamliners in Christchurch.

Streamliners writing team joins the celebrations remotely: (left) Naomi Saunders, Lead Writer and (right) Melissa Taylor, HealthPathways Writing Team Manager.

Pride in their achievements

Being able to boast one of the largest sources of localised pathways in Australia is a real source of pride for the team, says Catherine Spiller, Tasmania HealthPathways Lead.

“We’ve provided users in Tasmania with access to an incredible number of pathways in a relatively short period of time – getting close to the 800 mark. Our team has developed an incredible amount of pathway development experience and interacted with a large group of stakeholders over this period,” she says.

“In addition, receiving feedback from several other regions that they often use our pathways as a starting point to create their own makes us feel really positive about the collaborative value we’ve been able to add to the HealthPathways Community. At times this has been challenging, as being one of the first sites in Australia meant in those early days there were fewer opportunities to collaborate with other sites.”

“It’s quite an amazing achievement to be proud of,” says Susan Powell, General Manager, Primary Health Tasmania.

“In particular, we’d like to acknowledge all of the Primary Health Tasmania staff and clinical editors who have contributed to pathway development over the past five years; particularly Catherine Spiller, Ali McLeod, Viv Wright, and Graeme Bleach, who have all been involved since inception.”

Mobile-friendly site goes live

In addition to the birthday celebrations, Primary Health Tasmania also launched its mobile-friendly HealthPathways platform, ensuring improved performance on mobile phones, tablets, and other hand-held devices.

“This will be particularly beneficial for clinicians working in regional areas whose work may take them out of the clinic,” says Leigh Hutchinson, Primary Health Consultant – Sector Improvement and Innovation.

Next priorities

Looking forward to 2020, the team won’t lose any momentum, says Catherine.

“We’ll continue to strive towards our goal of 100 new and/or reviewed pages for the 2019-20 Financial Year. We’re currently well on track, having achieved 54 in five months,” she says.

“Working with other Primary Health Tasmania projects to embed HealthPathways into hospital referral systems and other system reform projects will also remain a priority.”

Building local engagement

For tips and resources to help you build HealthPathways engagement in your area, see Getting General Practice Engaged with HealthPathways, or Engagement and Education. These resources have been provided by members of the HealthPathways Community.