Australian Primary Care Collaboratives (APCC)

The Australian Primary Care Collaboratives (APCC) Program began as a 3-year, $14.6 million initiative funded from the Focus on Prevention - Primary Care Providers Working initiative announced in the 2003 – 2004 Australian Government Budget.

The Program is of international significance. In December 2007 funding was granted for Phase 2 of the APCC Program. Phase 2 of the Program is delivered to Divisions and their member practices by the Improvement Foundation Australia. In July 2009 funding was granted to Improvement Foundation Australia to deliver a national wave focusing on two new topics, Cardiovascular Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and Chronic Disease Prevention and Self Management (CDPSM). The APCC Program helps general practitioners (GPs) and primary health care providers work together to improve patient clinical outcomes, reduce lifestyle risk factors, help maintain good health for those with chronic and complex conditions and promote a culture of quality improvement in primary health care.

Ultimately, the APCC Program aims to find better ways to provide primary health care services to patients through shared learning, peer support, training, education and support systems. The Collaboratives methodology, designed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the USA, provides a generic quality improvement model that can be applied to achieve incremental, rapid and locally relevant improvements across a broad range of clinical and practice business issues. The topics to be addressed in the first and second phases of the Australian Primary Care Collaboratives Program are Diabetes, the Secondary Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease, and Improved Access to primary care.

The new topic areas of Cardiovascular Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and Chronic Disease Prevention and Self Management (CDPSM) will be introduced to practices via a national wave starting in September 2009.

For more information see www.apcc.org.au.