The positive benefits of having lead writers meet their clinical editors and coordinators in person has been one of the main takeaways from the successful launch events recently held for new regions Gippsland and Murray.

HealthPathways Lead Writer Graeme Wilson, who directly manages the technical writers who will be working on the new regions’ content, made the trip across the Tasman with Streamliners CEO Ian Anderson and HealthPathways Chief Clinical Editor Graham McGeoch to talk at the events.

As well as present an introduction to the platform and tools used to draft and publish HealthPathways, Graeme got the chance to introduce himself to his new colleagues face-to-face.

“It was great to meet everyone in person and the feedback we got was that it’s going to improve communication when we come to develop pathways,” he says.

“The team from Western Victoria were also there and I’ve worked with them for about a year now. But meeting them in person for the first time was clearly beneficial. One of the clinical editors said he’d be much more inclined to pick up the phone and call me to discuss a pathway now that he’d met me, and by the end of the Gippsland and Murray launches it felt like I’d known (Western Victoria Coordinator) Margie (McLeod) for years.”

This sentiment was echoed by Chief HealthPathways Adviser Andy Froggatt, who joined the Canterbury HealthPathways Team last year after working as GM Integration & Health Reform at Townsville Medicare Local.

“Taking the new regions’ lead writer with us to the launches was an enormous success and bringing writers across with us will become a regular feature of welcoming new regions to HealthPathways. Not only do they bring a lot of knowledge about the practical stuff with them, but there is also huge value in simply allowing customers to put a name to a face.”

Streamliners CEO Ian Anderson says that greater communication between writers and regional HealthPathways teams outside of Dot should be encouraged.

“It’s clear there is a need for our technical writers to be more available on the phone for our CEs so we don’t have to rely on or unnecessarily resort to the back and forth of emails in Dot. We’ll be coming up with improvements to our communication processes over the next few weeks and months.”