SWSPHN brought local clinicians together for the first in our multidisciplinary CPD series, The Common Ground, at Terranova on the Grange in Kearns on Thursday, 23 October.
The event attracted nine allied health professionals, one nurse and 13 GPs who had the opportunity to network, gain insights into each other’s scope of practice, and explore ways allied health and general practice can work together to improve patient outcomes.
The first in The Common Ground series focused on collaboration in the care of patients with chronic pain.
Chronic pain affects one in five Australians aged 45 and over, with the burden falling disproportionately on those living in low socioeconomic areas. However, managing chronic pain in isolation is often ineffective, as it is frequently both a contributing factor to and a consequence of multimorbidity.
In regions such as Camden, Liverpool and the Southern Highlands, we are seeing a rise in the number of older adults living with chronic pain and multimorbidity. Poor management of these conditions often leads to increased hospital burden, especially when significant health events occur.
The Common Ground attendees heard from Dr Lance Holland-Keen, a GP from Gregory Hills; Matthew McMullan, a senior physiotherapist at Liverpool Hospital; and Brendan Chiew, a pharmacist from SWSPHN’s Allied Health team.
Dr Holland-Keen talked about the barriers to care he had experienced and the scarcity of pain specialists in the region. He also spoke about why patients may not be engaged, how this affected overall care, and concerns about the low number of GPs prescribing appropriate medications.
Matthew talked about strategies GPs could use to improve access to the Liverpool Pain Management Clinic, including issues around the quality of documentation and how GP referral letters were an important triage tool. He said HealthPathways was a great tool for finding the right health providers.
Brendan talked about using the Home Medicines Review (HMR – a credentialed pharmacist who checks the medicines patients take at home), and interactions of medications and supplements. He explained the importance of GPs providing a brief context or reason for each HMR request. Even a short note about why the review is being requested helps the pharmacist align their assessment with the GP’s clinical priorities, in addition to the pharmacist’s focus on medication optimisation. This approach makes the HMR process more valuable, multidisciplinary and ensures recommendations are relevant and actionable.
Next allied health-GP webinar:
The next event in The Common Ground series will be a webinar, Health in obesity management, on Thursday, 13 November at 7pm. Register via our website
The National Allied Health Practice Engagement Toolkit is now available to support allied health professionals in South Western Sydney working in primary care.
