What is HealthPathways?
HealthPathways empowers clinicians with locally agreed information to make the best decisions, together with patients, at the point of care. HealthPathways is designed and written for use during a consultation. Each pathway provides clear and concise guidance for assessing and managing a patient with a particular symptom or condition.
Pathways include information about making referrals to services in the local health system as well as private service providers. Each pathway is evidence-informed, reflects local reality, and aims to preserve clinical autonomy and patient choice.
- Who should use HealthPathways?
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Health professionals who:
- would like up‑to‑date, evidence-based information about the assessment and management of a range of health-related conditions
- want to know how and when a patient should be referred to hospital, community health and other services, to ensure appropriate and timely care
- are new to the area and would like guidance on local referral options.
- Benefits of HealthPathways
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- More patients getting the right treatment or specialist care with less waiting and more educational resources and patient information.
- Provides clinicians with a single website to access clinical pathways, referral pathways and resources, such as health alerts.
- Provides general practitioners and other clinicians with clear and concise medical advice reached through consensus derived through local clinical working groups.
- Provides easy to access information on how to refer to the most appropriate local services and specialists.
- Improves the quality of referrals.
- Reduces the number of patients referred to specialist care who could be managed in a primary or community care setting.
- Helps reduce total hospital stays and waiting times.
- Increases specialists’ confidence in how patients are going to be managed within general practice.
- Promotes a collaborative approach to integrating primary and hospital-based care.
- Who is involved in HealthPathways?
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HealthPathways Mid and North Coast is a collaborative program run by the North Coast Primary Health Network in collaboration with Mid North Coast Local Health District and Northern NSW Local Health District.
- HealthPathways Evaluation
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In 2020 – 2021, Healthy North Coast, together with partners, Mid North Coast Local Health District and Northern NSW Local Health District, commissioned a process and outcomes evaluation of the Mid and North Coast HealthPathways program.
The evaluation identified strengths in the program as a trusted and reliable source of local clinical information at the point of care. This also supports relationship-building across different levels of the health system and improvements to regional models of care.
The HealthPathways team is working closely with partner and clinicians to implement recommendations from the evaluation report.
Read the HealthPathways Evaluation Report.
- Join Us
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We are always looking for health professionals to be involved in pathway development and reviews. If you would like to be involved, or would like to know more about what participating entails, email healthpathways@hnc.org.au.
Contact
Kerrie Keyte
Northern NSW Health Pathways Lead, Northern NSW LHD
Phone: 0429 530 274; 07 5589 0555;