Many Australians have limited access to health-care services due to a range of barriers, including geographic distance and restricted mobility, which telehealth can potentially address. This paper reviews the current and potential use of video consultation in primary health care in Australia, drawing on international literature. There is substantial evidence of high patient satisfaction, but many studies have methodological limitations. Overall, evidence of effectiveness and cost-effectiveness is weak. There is reasonable evidence for diagnosis, home care and specialist consultations by GPs with patients present. Two telehealth initiatives using video consultation are briefly presented. Both provide evidence that video consultation has a valuable role to play, but does not obviate the need for face-to-face consultations. Video consultation challenges traditional professional roles, particularly those of nurses, and can improve health workers’ skills and job satisfaction. More fundamentally, telehealth challenges the traditional distinction between primary and secondary care. This can be a source of resistance but may ultimately be one of its strengths. Appropriately targeted video consultation has much potential to improve the delivery of primary health care in Australia, particularly in rural and remote regions.
The specific details of the profile of workers using methamphetamine and the impact it has on work performance allows for the development of targeted interventions and tailored prevention strategies previously not possible.
Background: The evidence base developed by, and relevant to, primary health care (PHC) is rapidly increasing. With the wealth of literature available, searchers trying to find PHCspecific citations can feel overwhelmed. Objectives: Flinders Filters and the Primary Health Care Research & Information Service collaborated to develop a search filter enabling efficient and effective retrieval of relevant PHC literature. Methods: Stage 1 involved developing a PHC Search Filter in the OvidSP Medline platform using a rigorous experimental methodology. The search filter was then translated for webbased 'one click searching' in PubMed during Stage 2. Stage 3 involved planning and implementing a mixed-methods evaluation. Results: The search filter sensitivity was 77.0% with a post hoc relevance assessment of 78.3%. Four months after its launch a mixed-methods study evaluated the PHC Search Filter. With 90 respondents, analysis of data from the online survey demonstrated overarching benefits and a positive response to the tool, and directions for further refinement of the PHC Search Filter. Discussion: Designing the PHC Search Filter followed an established method that ensures the tool offers a validated search strategy. Evaluation results suggest that the PHC Search Filter is a useful tool that is easy to navigate. Challenges for the Filter relate to access to full text articles, while challenges for the evaluation relate to the small sample size. Conclusions: The PHC Search Filter reduces the burden associated with literature searching, increases the value of the results that are received, and provides a useful resource to improve the likelihood of incorporating relevant evidence into policy and practice.
KeywordsPrimary health care, information storage and retrieval, information management, evidencebased practice
Key messages Promoting access to quality, relevant literature may help to encourage uptake of evidence to inform research, practice and policy development Search filters based on validated development methods increase the likelihood of quality retrievals of citations The PHC Search Filter retrieves citations from the unindexed and indexed sets of the PubMed database providing searchers with the emerging and established literature The PHC Search Filter is able to facilitate easier access to relevant primary health care literature for overwhelmed, time poor researchers, policy makers and practitioners Topic searches that are combined with a search filter should be regularly updated to ensure relevance to searchers' needs/interests are incorporated
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