HealthTracker

Communicare can be integrated with The George Institute HealthTracker™, a decision support system developed by the researchers at The George Institute for Global Health to assist primary care health staff in best practice management and prevention of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease.

Clinicians can use the Communicare HealthTracker to generate an interactive health risk assessment which shows recommendations based on guidelines. They can demonstrate to patients how reducing a risk factor such as smoking can affect that patient's risk and provide tailored advice to patients to assist with the management and prevention of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and chronic kidney disease.

The interactive report uses the qualifiers and measurements recorded in the George Institute HealthTracker clinical item.

There is no cost to Communicare sites for the implementation, training and use of the HealthTracker™ tool.

Healthtracker details

Cardiovascular Risk is calculated using the Framingham Risk Equation and Diabetes Risk is calculated using the AUSDRISK™ tool.

Recommendations from current Australian guidelines are incorporated into a single algorithm to provide tailored management support. The following guidelines have been used in the development of the HealthTracker™ algorithm:

  • National Vascular Disease Prevention Alliance Guidelines for the management of absolute cardiovascular risk (2012)
  • National Heart Foundation Guide to the management of hypertension in Adults (2016)
  • National Heart Foundation Reducing risk in heart disease: an expert guide to clinical practice for secondary prevention of coronary heart disease (2012)
  • National Heart Foundation/Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand Guidelines for Atrial Fibrillation (2018)
  • Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Management of type 2 diabetes: A handbook for general practice (2020)
  • Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Guidelines for preventive activities in general practice 9th edition (2018)
  • Kidney Health Australia Chronic Kidney Disease Management in Primary Care 4th edition (2020)
  • Australian Stroke Foundation Clinical Guidelines for Stroke Management (2020)
  • 2018 NACCHO/ RACGP National guide to a preventive health assessment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

HealthTracker™ has been extensively evaluated in a large cluster randomised controlled trial involving 40 General Practices and 20 Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services in NSW and Queensland. It was associated with improvements in guideline-recommended screening for CVD risk and improved prescribing, particularly for people at high CVD risk who were not receiving guideline-recommended medications, see https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCOUTCOMES.114.001235. The intervention was also found to be highly cost effective, see https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/213/2/computer-guided-quality-improvement-tool-primary-health-care-cost-effectiveness.

HealthTracker data privacy and security

The George Institute has strict privacy requirements for handling data and fully complies with the Australian Privacy Principles and laws. Deidentified data is securely sent to The George Institute’s servers, which are located within an ISO 27001 certified data centre in Sydney. The servers process the data through the HealthTracker™ rules engine to generate the results. No data is retained by The George Institute at the completion of this process.

HealthTracker training

Training in how to use the George Institute HealthTracker™ will be conducted by The George Institute remotely, ideally in small group sessions. Training must be completed before the George Institute HealthTracker clinical item is enabled for your site.

Information describing the HealthTracker™ included by Communicare is an overview only. More in-depth information about the functionality and use of the HealthTracker™ will be covered in the training provided by The George Institute.

For an overview of the George Institute HealthTracker™ in Communicare, see https://youtu.be/FSumkO2lF4c.