Benchmarking

Data extraction tools, data quality and benchmarking reports for practices.
If you would like to start receiving benchmarking reports, please contact your Practice Support Officer.

Improve data quality

PHNs across the nation have been commissioned to improve the delivery of primary care. To support and deliver on these priorities effectively in our region we need the relevant population health data to inform us and the service providers in our region.

Why share data

The data sharing process allows for the compliant, safe and secure sharing of deidentifed population health data to the PHN for the provision of improved primary care support. The processes also sees the supply of practice and population health planning tools allowing practices to interrogate their own patient data to identify data gaps and at risk patients seeing practices mitigate risk and increase patient health outcomes.

CAT Plus and Data Sharing Process Fact Sheet [PDF]
Data Privacy – Your privacy is our concern flyer [PDF]

About CAT Plus

The PHN are pleased to announce that we have purchased licences for Pen CS for the full suite of CAT Plus products for practice and population health planning.

The CAT Plus solution provides decision support to health providers at the point of engagement, extracts general practice data for practice analysis and aggregates general practice data for service planning, reporting and population health needs.

Three target areas

CAT Plus is a combination of technologies that directly targets three primary care layers to improve patient health outcomes; the Patient (Topbar) , the Practice (CAT4) and the Population (PAT) .

Receive benchmarking reports

The PHN also provides practices with a ‘Practice Quality Benchmarking Report’ highlighting risk and quality improvement opportunities against accreditation indicators and evidence based clinical guidelines.

Providing Deidentified (DI) Data

The CAT4 software allows the practice to strip out all data unique to a patient such as health identifiers, billing and demographic data leaving only clinical data required for practice level and wider population health planning.

Local population health data has enabled the PHN to identify, fund and support health needs in our region including COPD and Asthma Nurses, Rural healthcare services in Kilkivan and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health care in Gympie.

CAT Plus- Topbar

Topbar is Pen CS’ fastest growing technology and is playing a significant role in improving general practice Data Quality, Chronic Disease Management and eHealth. Integrated with existing clinical and billing software, Topbar allows users to choose which features or ‘apps’ to turn on and off.

Apps include the:

MBS App
PHS (Patient Health Summary) App
Waiting Room App
Cleansing App and;
Feedback App

User control allows you to design a solution that meets your practice needs and workflows. Topbar is available to users with a CAT Plus Licence.

CAT Plus Licences have been purchased by the PHN. Practice Manager’s will receive written correspondence from PHN Area Managers then your Practice Support Officer will be in contact after this to provide further information and get you set up with this exciting new software described by practices as ‘a truly beneficial tool to practice staff’. For more information on Topbar click here.

A helpful overview including screenshots can be found in this this Topbar Guide

CAT Plus- CAT4

The Clinical Audit Tool (CAT4) is a population health reporting tool that takes a snapshot of the clinical and billing databases and allows practice staff to look at their data in new ways for the achievement of best practice and data quality while optimising the financial opportunities for GPs and the Practice.

CAT4 scrutinises the aggregated patient information of the practice and presents it quickly and accurately in a refreshing graphical format that is easy to understand including pie and bar graphs and exportable tables for the use in recalls and reminders making population health and quality care initiatives simple to act upon and measure. Business opportunities can also be identified.

The PHN has licences available and can provide installation, training and support in the use of the clinical audit tool. If you would like to have CAT4 in your practice or you have the tool and would like some training and support please speak to your Practice Support Officer.

More information	CAT Plus Fact Sheet
Support	You can contact your Practice Support Officer or Pen CS Support
Instructions	CAT4 User Guide
Search instructions ‘Recipes’	Click Here for PEN CAT Recipes
Data Collection	If you have the Scheduler service installed your de-identified data will be submitted to the PHN automatically according to the schedule that has been set. If you do not have Scheduler installed or for some other reason you need to send data manually the guide below will show you how: Sending de-identified data to the PHN

CAT Plus- PAT CAT

PAT CAT is a web based solution that aggregates de-identified General Practice data and displays the information through a comprehensive collection of graphs, charts and reports for the purpose of population health planning.

PAT CAT allows the PHN to:

Efficiently analyse the needs of a population within a defined catchment
Identify and assist general practices to implement clinical interventions
Compare Chronic Disease Prevalence
Identify Data Quality gaps and provide education and support
Compare MBS Item Number Utilisation
Map aggregate data with ability to overlay with ABS statistical data

View more information about PAT CAT here.

Data Extraction Tool Agreement (DETA)

The PHN DETA is put in place to protect General Practices, PHN and PEN Computer Systems who provide the data collection tool (Cat Plus).

All entities need to comply with Privacy Act 1988 and The Australian Privacy Principles; the agreement ensures all parties are aware of ‘Who, Where, When Why and How’ data is collected and used.

Agreements are designed to set out our obligations in an open and transparent manner without confusing legal jargon.

Data Extraction Tool Agreement

An electronic Data Extraction Tool Agreement is available at the above link. Please read and complete the required fields for the Agreement before submitting.

Practice Quality Benchmarking Report

Practices who have a signed Data Extraction Tool Agreement in place and have CAT4 installed are eligible to receive quarterly benchmarking reports highlighting data quality (based on accreditation standards), care opportunities and business opportunities based on the practices’ current data.

The information presented allows practices to quickly and efficiently make one item their focus for improvement. The practice can also see how they compare to the area average of aggregated data.

The report is developed for practice benefit only, to save time and effort in interrogating practice data.

Practices are under no obligation to take any action based on the report findings however Practice Support Officers are available and enthusiastic to provide support, training and helpful resources in the CAT tool and quality improvement activities to help practices reach their data quality, care and business potential goals.

Sample Quality Benchmarking Report [PDF]

Automated Data Collection and Sending

We offer fully automated general practice data collection using CAT4, Scheduler and PATCAT to populate the Practice Quality Benchmarking Report.

Scheduler is a piece of software installed on a practice’s server by PENCS. The software works with CAT4 to automatically run a data collection at a specified time and date, this means you don’t have to remember to hit ‘collect’.

You can schedule a number of collects such as a regular monthly collect and then a back-up collect in case of server downtime, power failure etc.

Scheduler is designed to securely upload the practice data set directly to our PATCAT server removing the need for manual data collection.

Installation is completed by PENCS support staff who will liaise with the practice’s IT provider to ensure all required information is at hand for a smooth installation.

Sending de-identified to the PHN

Last Updated on September 30, 2024.