North East Valley DGP eNews

No 0828: August 14, 2008
eNews is a weekly electronic newsletter sent to all GP practices (with email addresses) within the NEV catchment. The aim is to provide up to date information relevant to GPs and to disseminate the latest activities and resources from the division. All feedback and enquiries welcome and should be addressed to Patty Marshall. You can also visit our website at: http://www.nevdgp.org.au/.
To subscribe to eNews click on subscribe. To be removed from the eNews distribution list click on Unsubscribe

 

In this issue:

Aged Care                                       Winter Demand Strategy for Residential Aged Care  

Professional Development               CPD events          

HMR                                                 Wound healing in older people        

Immunisation                                   Beware - Anti Immunisation Lecture

Information Management                includes General Computer Tip, Medical Director Tips and New on the Web

Items of interest                               Correct claiming of Medicare level C and D attendance items, Accredited Practicing Dietician, GP Network News, BECC waiting times   

News for Practice Staff                    Practice Nurse Funding Grant, Diabetes Update, Diabetes resources, Ear Irrigation Course   

NPS                                                 LAST Paper audit now open for enrolment, NPS Dementia Survey

Paediatrics                                      Launch of new RCH Clinical Services Directory online          

Women’s Health                              Educational Updates by Victorian Cytology 

Positions vacant/wanted                     

Fun stuff                                              

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Aged Care

Winter Demand Strategy for Residential Aged Care

DHS has recently funded a number of hospitals in Melbourne to pilot services that will help prevent avoidable emergency department presentations by residents of aged care facilities over the peak winter period of July to October 2008. The Austin, The Northern Hospital and St Vincent’s have all received funding and are in the process of rolling out their services to aged care homes.

The Austin Residential Care Inreach Service offers

·     Same day assessment by a ‘Hospitals in the Home’ Nurse and an Emergency Department Physician at the aged care home

·     Hospitals in the Home support for patient management at the aged care home, where appropriate

The Austin Inreach service will be offered at the following aged care homes: Melbourne City Mission Eltham (Judge Book, Willandra), Lower Plenty Garden Views, St Francis of Assisi, Strathalan, Darley House, Twin Parks, Rosanna Views, Grace Villa, Hilltop Nursing Home, Latrobe Village and Hostel, Greensborough Nursing Home, Fronditha Care, Regis MacLeod, Eden Terrace, Ashley Terrace, Deloraine, Southern Cross MacLeod, Aberdeen, Sir William Hall.

The Inreach nurse is available to take referrals Monday to Friday 8am to 4pm on Mob 0422 006 655

For more information please contact the Inreach nurse on 0422 006 655 Mon- Fri 8am – 4pm, or Dr Alison Sands or Clare Chiminello at the Division on 9496 4333.

 

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CPD

Term 3 GP Lecture Program

Meetings are held each Tuesday starting at 12.30 in the Lecture Theatre, Ground Floor, Pathology Building, Repatriation Hospital, Austin Health, West Heidelberg. Lunch is provided. Course Leader: Dr Vin Nursey Phone: 9457 1736

August 19 -  Diabetic Neuropathy  - Mr Neil Roberts

For full term Tuesday lecture program click here

 

Austin Health - Division of Medicine Grand Round

Department of Haematology - “Current Concepts in Haemophilia Care” Speakers: Assoc. Prof Alison Street, Alfred Hospital Haemophilia Centre & Dr Andrew Lim, Haematology Registrar

Wednesday 20 August, 12:10pm at John Lindell Lecture Theatre, Level 4, Lance Townsend Building, Opposite Medical Library - followed by lunch in Zeltner Hall at 1:00pm

 

The Healer's Art Seminar

Led by Frank Dornfest, MD, MFGP (SA), FAAFP. Director, Advanced Clinical Skills Development Program, Associate Professor, Family Medicine, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland Oregon, USA.

Wednesday 20 August at University of Melbourne, 200 Berkeley Street, Carlton. (Dept of GP & School of Physio Building)

11.30 am to 12.30 pm - Introductory lecture & discussion: “Awakening the Heart of Medicine”

1:15 pm – 3:15 pm - Two Hour Participatory Workshop: “Meaning in Medicine”. Retaining a sense of meaning in our daily work as students, doctors and teachers by rekindling the call to service, that brought us to medicine.

RSVP: diannecf@unimelb.edu.au or A/Prof Steve Trumble (03) 83448049

 

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HMR

Wound healing in older people

Speakers: Prof Geoff Sussman, Wound Management Foundation, Austin Hospital, Prof Louis Roller Monash University and Dr Jenny Gowan, NDGP.

Making HMRs, RMMRs (Items 900, 903) work

Wednesday 3 September 7-9pm. Refreshments from 6:30pm. Main speaker 7.30pm. At Northern Division Training Room.

Enquiries to Jenny Gowan on Tel. 8480 4611. Flyer on the website.

 

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Immunisation

Beware - Anti Immunisation Lecture

Just to let you know that an American anti vaccine group will be lecturing in various locations across the state from next Tuesday onwards. They will be in Heidelberg on Tuesday 26th August. They are publicising their lecture under the banner of ‘VIC (Vaccine Injured Children)’

 

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Information Management

General Computer Tip - Using “Paste Special”

Ever noticed that when you copy and paste from the internet or from one document to another it carries the formatting with it. What you often want is for it be in “normal” text. In the following example we’ll copy some text from a website and paste it into Word.

1. Highlight some text from a webpage and copy it (Control + C)

2. Open a blank Word document and from the Edit menu select Paste special… and from the list of options select Unformatted Text – the text will now be pasted in the Normal style.

 

Medical Director Tip - Adding printed lines to a table

Sometimes you create a table in LetterWriter where you want to place printed lines around the cells.

 

Date

BP (Sitting)

Height

Weight

3/06/1999

120/70

190

77

4/08/2008

125/72

190

79

 

To add borders to the table

1.   Highlight the whole table and from the Table menu select Properties…

2.   In the Frame click on each of the borders – this will add a “heavy” line to each border. Then click OK.

3.   Your table will now look like the example below.

 

Date

BP (Sitting)

Height

Weight

3/06/1999

120/70

190

77

4/08/2008

125.72

190

79

 

This weeks IM problem - Adding twice weekly to a script

Question: I am prescribing a medication that needs to be applied twice weekly. There is no choice under “Frequency” to do this. How do I do it?

Answer: Under instructions click on “Other” and then type in “Twice only” and then click OK. If you wish to save this for future use you click on the “Save text” button and give it a code (say TW for the twice only). Next time you can click on the “Insert stored text” button and click on the code (TW) to insert the text. This is handy for the longer, more convoluted instructions such as Prednisone.

 

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Items of Interest

Correct claiming of Medicare level C and D attendance items (MBS Group A1, A18 and A22 services)

Following recent widely publicised concerns about interpretation of items B&C, DoHA have now released a fact sheet to clarify the situation for GPs.

 

Accredited Practicing Dietitian

Cheryl Olney an Accredited Practicing Dietitian (APD) is consulting at Bundoora Health, 445 Grimshaw St, Bundoora 3083 telephone: 9466 7211. Cheryl has broad experience in general dietetics and has a special interest in diabetes (including gestational diabetes and patients on insulin pump therapy), lipid and weight management.

Cheryl is DVA and HIC registered so services can be provided to veterans and those with EPC referrals. Rebates are available through private health insurance extras.

 

GP Network News

This edition is available here Full version.

 

BECC waiting times

Waiting times for new referrals to Bundoora Extended Care Centre Inpatient Admissions are currently approximately Gem > 7 days, Rehab 7 days  as of 8/8/08. Any queries regarding our waiting times please contact Access BECC on 9495 3109

 

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News for Practice Staff

Practice Nurse Funding Grant

Supporting the integration of the Life! Diabetes prevention program into your practice for over 50 year olds. Diabetes Australia Victoria will be providing practice nurse funding for up to 16 hours (4 hours over 4 weeks). This funding will enable practice nurses located within general practice to identify patients at risk of type 2 diabetes and call them in to complete the risk test, and then test/refer as appropriate. Follow link for EOI form and further information or contact Angie Deegan on 93415247. Please note there are only 4 funding grants per division.

 

Diabetes Update for Busy Practice Nurses (only 25 places available at each session, you are welcome to attend both or just one which is of interest)

Session 1 (Introductory) Thursday 18th September Topics covered: What is diabetes, possible complications, MBS Item Numbers (including new item numbers), Diabetes Annual Cycle of Care, Use of Medical Director and the PEN Clinical Audit Tool, Self Monitoring and Practical Sessions with Glucometers.

Session 2 (Follow up) Thursday 25th September Topics covered: Current Management of Diabetes, Medications, Self Management, Footcare, Practical session with Insulin Pens and Monofilaments

Both sessions: 6.30pm – 9.00pm at John Scott Meeting House. To register download invitation

These workshops will provide education and training specifically around evidence based best practice diabetes management. Please note that these two sessions are one week apart.  For further information contact Janina or telephone 9496 4333.  

 

Diabetes resources

For more information on ‘Diabetes - resources for identifying and managing "at risk" patients of developing type 2 Diabetes’ see the website

 

NEW Ear Irrigation Course in Melbourne  
Due to overwhelming demand – Benchmarque Group have added an additional Course in Ear Irrigation as part of our National Clinical Skills Program in Melbourne. The course will be running on Monday 8th September 2008 from 9am to 3pm. Places for the NEW course are filling fast.  Only 20 places remain. To register - please phone us on 1300 855 568. For more course information - log onto www.ncsp.com.au. If you would like to find more log onto www.benchmarquegroup.com.au

 

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NPS

LAST Paper audit now open for enrolment

The last NPS/QUM paper clinical audit available for the QPI year: 1 May 2008 - 30 April 2009 is now open for enrolment. The audit is titled ‘Using inhaled corticosteroids and long-acting beta2 agonists’. Online enrolments are currently available at www.nps.org.au/health_professionals/activities/clinical_audits_for_gps and enrolment is also available with PPR 42, which is posted to you or you may download an audit form here.  Audit enrolment closes by 19th September 2008. Completed audits must be received by the NPS by Friday 17th October 2008.

Please note an electronic audit on diabetes is still due for release in October.

 

NPS Dementia Survey

NPS will introduce a new program in September exploring evidence for the symptomatic treatment of dementia titled “Treating the symptoms of dementia“. Traditionally NPS has collected information assessing the value of programs to GPs by paper-based surveys. For the first time, NPS is collecting this information from GPs electronically. NPS would greatly appreciate your assistance in completing this 5 minute survey to assist NPS to evaluate this program and ensure it is of value to GPs. To complete the survey please click on the link below before Friday August 29thhttp://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=qy55cKWWNhGepdlEjVLXhQ_3d_3d

A follow-up survey will be sent to GPs in late 2009.  No individual responses are received by NPS. All data are received as pooled estimates for each question thus ensuring the privacy of all respondents.

Contact Steven Riddell (sriddell@nps.org.au) or Svetlana Aristidi (saristidi@nps.org.au) for more information

 

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Paediatrics

Launch of new RCH Clinical Services Directory online

On August 13th the Royal Children’s Hospital launched its new online Clinical Services Directory.  Referrers to the RCH can look up services by keyword, clinic name or specialty.  Each clinic links to referral forms, pre-referral guidelines, parent information factsheets and other online useful tools and resources where available.

For Outpatients - referring, forms & parent info – go to the Kids Connect website and click on the Outpatients link.

 

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Women’s Health

Educational Updates by Victorian Cytology

Pap Test Guidelines & Technique, HPV Etiology and Vaccine plus Chlamydia & other STI’s - these sessions can be tailored to suit individual clinic needs or small learning groups and are presented by Sexual Health Physicians, Dr Stella Heley or Dr Siobhan Bourke. 

Education is free of charge – please call Lyndal on 03 9250 0360 or 0407 363 822 or email lritchie@vcs.org.au

 

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Positions vacant/wanted

Please note: only new ads, paid ads or resubmitted ads will be posted here. All other ads can be found on the website

 

Positions vacant

Doctors

Cheltenham - We are looking for a VR GP to join our midsized accredited practice. Comfortable new rooms, fully computerised, flexible sessions, pathology, podiatry, physiotherapy and psychology all on site. Excellent remuneration, you will not be disappointed. Will suit subsequent trainees. For further information please phone Peter Enten on (03) 9584 9504 or peterenten@bigpond.com

           

Ivanhoe Medical Clinic - sessions for PT or FT VR GP. Modern, large group with supportive colleagues and full time nurses, computerised, CDMs, mixed billing, flexible, friendly, no A/H, good remuneration. Contact Dr.Stephen Smith or Dr.David Doig on 03 9499 1245.

 

South Morang - GP required for privately owned, accredited medical centre. Private billing practice. Morning/afternoon shifts available. Div 1 nursing support. Contact Wendy Reichstein 9436 4222

 

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Humour

Who is Your Best Friend?

To find out, just try this experiment.

Put your dog and your wife in the boot of the car for an hour.

When you open the trunk, who is really happy to see you?

 

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