In Australia, Primary Health Networks have been established to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of medical services for patients within their region. They focus on patients who are higher at risk and work towards providing them the treatment they need when they need it.
North Western Melbourne PHN has identified eight priority areas of activity, one of these is mental health which is the area we are working with them on to improve their services.
Cemplicity are working with KPMG and North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network to survey patients receiving Primary Mental Health Services. These services are a combination of mild to moderate psychological services and more intense services for people with complex mental health issues. The Cemplicity approach is a combination of PROMS (Patient-reported outcome measures) and a specialist mental health patient experience questionnaire – the YES survey. We will contact patients three times throughout their treatment journey, the first survey will set a baseline and allow patients to provide the goal they would like to accomplish as a result of the treatment. Subsequent surveys will present this goal back to patients to ask them how well the goal was achieved. They can also comment on how things have changed, how differently they feel now and what they believe their treatment plan has helped them to achieve. An important aspect of this programme is that we go back to patients six months after the treatment has finished to ask about their sustained health outcome. We want to help patients at the individual level, in consultation with their doctor. However, as the data from the programme gets to robust levels, we hope to build an understanding of which population groups benefit from the health service and which population groups might find other forms of treatment and support more beneficial in the long term.
This data will also help North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network understand how their commissioned services may be improved to offer the most effective services for consumers. (ie. Quality improvement of services with service providers)