The General Practice Liaison Unit builds and enhances pathways, linkages, capacity, programs and services between general practice, community health care and the hospital.
The unit also manages the shared maternity care program and provides continuing professional development events for GPs and other community health professionals.
The work of the Women’s GP Liaison Unit
Shared Maternity Care
The Shared maternity care program is supported by the GP Liaison Unit, including monitoring, clinical governance and quality improvement.
The unit is also responsible for credentialing and re-credentialing Shared Maternity Care Affiliates. This is a joint process with the Shared Maternity Care Collaborative (the Women’s, Mercy Health, Northern Health, and Western Health), so doctors can apply to be an Affiliate for any of these health services with a single application.
Over 25% of our maternity patients choose to participate in shared maternity care involving an accredited GP, obstetrician or midwife. A recent survey of women involved in shared maternity care indicates a very high level of satisfaction.
Refer to shared maternity care webpage for:
- Fact sheet for women in a number of different languages
- Schedule of visits
- List of credentialed Shared Maternity Care Affiliates
- Information and applications for credentialing and re-credentialing
- Shared Maternity Care Guidelines
Responding to GP queries
The unit provides advice and support to GPs and other healthcare professionals to address communication gaps, support community care, ensure efficient clinical handover and improve coordination and care. This includes navigating services, complaints, follow-up of hospital care, clinical care issues and referrals.
Providing input and policy development
The unit provides input to many hospital and departmental committees, policies and standards.
Continuing professional development
The unit runs Continuing Professional Development seminars for GPs and shared maternity care affiliates on relevant women's health topics.
It can also arrange for affiliates to attend the hospital's maternity outpatient clinics to refresh their skills or to achieve credentialing.
Performance indicators, audits and surveys
The unit contributes to hospital accreditation, audits and surveys in order to obtain information and feedback on care and services provided at the hospital.
The unit tracks, reports on and actively contributes to the improvement of communication performance indicators, such as percentage of discharge summaries created, percentage of successful dispatch of discharge summaries, percentage of GP details on patient files and discharge summaries that have not been successfully sent.
Recent surveys include:
- Survey on the Guidelines for Shared Maternity Care Affiliates; sent to shared maternity care affiliates
Development of models of care
The unit has contributed to the development of several models of care to better address the needs of women and to improve access. Recent examples include:
- Shared care for early breast cancer
- Endometrial cancer survivorship care
- Telehealth services for women with menopausal symptoms after cancer
Resources for women and health professionals
The unit has assisted with the development of information for women and health professionals to support the provision of quality care. Recent examples include:
- Shared Maternity Care Guidelines
- Managing women at high inherited risk of ovarian cancer (for health professionals)
- Considering surgery to reduce your risk of ovarian cancer? (for women)
- GP News (GPs and health professionals are invited to subscribe to the Women's quarterly GP e-newsletter).