International HealthPathways COVID-19 response

Discussions
1

Hi everyone

Just to make you aware of the international HealthPathways COVID-19 response in case it is relevant to any activity you are involved with.

tl;dr - watch this - https://vimeo.com/399023505/05236d91b7

Two weeks ago the HealthPathways team stopped all other projects to focus exclusively on the rapidly evolving COVID-19 situation. Our assessment was that HealthPathways could contribute by:

  • Rapidly adapting national and state emergency response plans and clinical guidance to be locally relevant for general practice teams.
  • Supporting the safety of front line health workers.
  • Communicating health system service reconfiguration to general practice teams as it happens.
  • Getting feedback from front line clinicians to emergency policy makers.

In collaboration with the international HealthPathways Community we have developed a package of guidance for general practice teams covering:

  • Preparing your general practice for COVID-19
  • Assessing and managing patients with suspected COVID-19
  • Impacts on local health services

Given the rapidly changing situation there is a huge amount of work involved in maintaining locally relevant guidance in a format that is easy to use for front line clinicians. To make this more achievable, the COVID-19 guidance in HealthPathways is being developed and maintained collaboratively in three layers:

  1. International information is being maintained by the Base HealthPathways team at Streamliners.
  2. National or state level information, aligned with emergency response plans, is maintained by a lead region in each jurisdiction. In New Zealand the lead region is Canterbury. All other regions in New Zealand can chose to automatically receive updates from Canterbury. As of today, the Ministry of Health is now advising the Canterbury HealthPathways team directly of upcoming policy changes so that these can be rapidly incorporated into pathways.
  3. Local information, such as lab collection points and health service changes is being maintained by the local HealthPathways teams at a DHB level.

This week Hawke’s Bay DHB has joined the HealthPathways Community, so HealthPathways will be available to every general practice in New Zealand from next week.

We will also be upgrading all HealthPathways sites in New Zealand next week to our new mobile-friendly platform so that the information can be easily accessed from phones and tablets.

In Canterbury we are working on similar guidance for hospital use in Hospital HealthPathways.

If you are working in this area you may wish to connect with your local HealthPathways team and I’m happy to answer any questions here.

Kieran

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2

Hi Kieran; do you mind if I also post this on healthforum.nz?

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3

Hi Nathan, that would be fine, would it be better if I posted it? I got your message about this forum but not the invite, or if I did it got lost in the maelstrom of emails this week.

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Absolutely. In the https://healthforum.nz/c/covid-19-planning category would be best.

Checked it out, and I never sent you an invite it seems - sent you one just now. Probably a ‘wetware’ issue at my end!

I’ll double check that everyone has had an invite now and send one to any that missed out.

5

Hi Kieran Congratulations on finally getting Hawkes Bay on board and to all your team for doing a great job under pressure. Regards, Rose Laing

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