Program Measures

The APCC Program measures were created for each topic by expert reference panels (ERPs) comprised of GPs and specialists. The APCC reports are a standard set of measures that look at key clinical indicators. Practices submit monthly reports to the APCC Program which include measures for the following topic areas:

  • Diabetes
  • Coronary Heart Disease
  • Access
  • Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
  • Chronic Disease Prevention and Self Management

Program Reporting

What is the purpose of the APCC reports?

APCC reports rapidly and easily present you with information about the "overall state of play" of your patients with diabetes and CHD as groups. Knowing the "state of play" of a particular cohort of patients provides you with insight into the mechanisms of care delivery at work within your practice and can reveal opportunities to enhance earning potential, streamline practice systems, and improve the quality of care that you may have been unaware of. This type of information has not been readily available to GPs before.

What are the actual measures that the report(s) cover?

The APCC Program Measures cover Diabetes, Chronic Heart Disease (CHD), General Prevention Measures, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) & Chronic Disease Prevention and Self Management (CDPSM).

To view a summary of the APCC Program Measures please click here

To view the full version of the APCC Program Measures please click here

What is the web portal?

The web portal allows participating practices to lodge their monthly data electronically and review their improvement progress over the course of the Program. Practices can also compare and benchmark their progress in relation to other practices within the Program. Each participant in the Program has a unique log-in that allows them to submit their data securely. This login can be obtained from your Divisional Collaboratives Program Manager (CPM) or the APCC team. Practices who are not actively participating in the APCC Program are welcome to submit data to the portal to track their improvements. Please contact your Division for more information

How do they do this?

APCC reports collate selected measures from your electronic patient records. This collated information is presented to you in the form of a percentage of your patients who meet certain criteria. For example, the percentage of your diabetic patients with a current HbA1c of less than 7. 

I'm doing ok. Why should I bother?

Experience from GPs in over 1000 Australian practices indicates that you will find the information in APCC reports surprisingly useful. By considering your patients with diabetes and CHD as a whole group, a new perspective on your patients is available to you. From this new perspective, you can consider issues that affect both patient care and business profitability.

APCC reports produce very powerful information which is immediately useful in your practice. For example, A simple statistic like the % of your diabetic patients with an HbA1c <7 might trigger an examination of many aspects of your practice. If the percent of patients with this reading is low, questions might include:

  • how much income are we missing from diabetes SIP payments?
  • do the GPs in this practice have a consistent understanding of when a new HbA1c test is required?
  • are we recording this information properly?
  • is our recall system working?
  • is our delivery of diabetes care sufficiently methodical or do gaps exist in our systems?
  • are we setting ourselves up for a high future workload with acute diabetic patients by constantly missing opportunities to intervene early?

Last Updated 11 March 2010