The work of Hunter New England HealthPathways Team was recently recognised at the 2015 HNE Health Excellence Awards.

The annual Excellence Awards acknowledges the people and projects that have improved patient care across the Hunter New England Local Health District and celebrates the organisation’s achievements in clinical excellence, quality, and innovation over the past 12 months.

Above: Dr Margaret Lynch, Leanne Halliday, Martha Parsons, and Ian O'Dea.

The Hunter New England HealthPathways Team won two awards for their work on the projects described below.

Joint winners of the Integrated Health Care Award for their entry, “A New Way of Working Together, Acute Networks Research, Innovation & Partnerships”: 

• Hunter & New England HealthPathways is a partnership which is the first of its kind in Australia, between Hunter New England Health, Hunter Medicare Local and New England Medicare Local.
• The partnership supports a new way of working to deliver appropriate care in the right place at the right time. HealthPathways is aimed at improving the referral and management of patients by general practitioners and clinical specialists and supports service redesign.  
• Evaluations have shown that HealthPathways strengthens relationships, empowers general practitioners and improves communication, trust and respect. HealthPathways has also improved the quality of referrals and access to specialist care.  Website usage is increasing with a 74 per cent increase in self-reported use by medium and large general practices.  
• The consumer information on the website averages 120 page views per week with 3,161 individual users. Case studies suggest that where HealthPathways supports redesign as a way of communicating new ways of working between specialists and general practitioners - more patients receive appropriate care at the right time, in the right place.

Winners of the Local Solutions Award for “Maternity HealthPathways – Walking the Right Path Together, John Hunter Hospital Maternity and Gynaecology”:

• A survey of General Practitioners conducted in 2011 found that 21 per cent of the respondents reported that referring pregnant women to the John Hunter Hospital antenatal clinic was problematic.
• Communication between the Maternity and Gynaecology Service and the general practitioners was time consuming, unreliable and inadequate.  
• The HealthPathways project was undertaken to improve the referral and management of women by general practitioners and the HNE Health’s clinical specialists. Timely access to the most clinically appropriate care is known to improve outcomes for women and their babies.
• The project team localised the HealthPathways website to include referral processes and standardised guidance for antenatal care and the website has resulted in a significant increase in the number of women who receive “the right care, in the right place, at the right time” according to their risk.
  

For more information, see the full media release.