Chair: Maridulu Budyari Gumual - SPHERE
Co-Chair: Sydney Health Partners

Engaging with experts from across AHRA member centres, this group is focused on the development and implementation of models and methods to support learning healthcare systems, addressing Priority 1: Health Services Research and Evidence Synthesis and Education/Dissemination of the 2018 National Framework.

An initial priority has been the development of an evidence-based policy position that outlines the respective roles of AHRA, its member organisations and other stakeholders in supporting and enabling learning healthcare systems. It is envisaged that this will provide a platform for AHRA and its members to advocate for the resources required to further the development of learning healthcare system around Australia.

To inform this, the working group has commissioned a systematic review exploring models and methods for facilitating better use of guidelines and registries in support of learning healthcare systems, which is in final preparation and will shortly be submitted for publication.

This directly addresses recommendation 4.5 in the National Framework:

That the AHRA National Network investigates the enablers of, and barriers to, the use of clinical guidelines and clinical registries, and develops and adapts models and methods to ensure their effective integration wit health service delivery

The working group will then formulate and seek endorsement of the AHRA policy position and explore a number of research and translational activities recommended in the systematic review that will address the need to further capture and adapt activity and best practices related to the use of guidelines and registries.

Low-value care is health interventions or models of care that provide little or no benefits, may cause patient harm, or yield marginal benefits at a disproportionately high cost. Choosing low-value care potentially wastes resources that could have been expended on alternative forms of care which provide greater level of benefit to patients.

HSIS Working Group 2 activity aims to drive safer, higher-quality patient care by supporting health professionals to recognise low-value care, make better decisions and change their clinical behaviour to reduce low-value practices.

The objective of HSIS Working Group Two activity is to:

• identify mechanisms and opportunities to implement change in health care to reduce low-value care practices
• enable and empower health professionals to identify and change their clinical practice to reduce low-value care
• support health service management to better understand and manage low-value care and facilitate clinical practice improvement.

It will achieve this through implementation of the following activity:

• review of strategies to help health professionals identify and reduce low-value care
• development of toolkits to support health professionals to identify low-value care and change their clinical practice to reduce low-value care
• pilot the toolkits and explore ways to strengthen links across the care continuum for the adoption of programs that reduce low-value care, and establish how this can be accomplished at scale considering competing priorities for health professionals.

HSIS Working Group 3 was formed to address the need for a national framework to guide local level evaluation and implementation, and increase awareness of health care evaluation and its association with decision making.

The driver for this Working Group is a concern that the expected value from healthcare spending in Australia is not being realised and few systems of care are being adequately and appropriately evaluated, particularly at the local level.

Led by NSW Regional Health Partners, this working group will design a framework to assess emerging health technologies and models of care, encourage and facilitate the uptake of cost-effective health technologies and support disinvestment in ‘low value care’.

Download Report: The Local Level Evaluation of Healthcare in Australia (pdf)