Getting funding to upgrade digital capabilities was the most popular part of the federal government’s $220 million GP grant program.
Nine in 10 GP clinics across Australia took up funding offered as part of the Strengthening Medical GP grants program, despite many being of the opinion that it could have gone to better use.
The program was introduced in last year’s budget, administered through the Primary Health Networks and was open to all GP clinics and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations.
On Monday, the Department of Health and Aged Care published an external review of the grant program and rollout, conducted by Nous Group.
Each grant could go toward one of three streams – enhancing digital health capability, upgrading infection and prevention control arrangements, and maintaining accreditation – but practices and ACCHOs could receive more than one grant across more than one stream.
All told, 7047 GP practices received a grant, representing 93% of the eligible cohort.
Each grant was worth either $25,000, $35,000 or $50,000, and were one-off lump sum payments.
Around 90% of the grants given out were for $25,000, with only 107 clinics across the country receiving a $50,000 grant.
Worth $220 million, the Strengthening Medicare – General Practice Grants program is separate to the $33 million GP Incentive Fund that The Medical Republic reported on last week, although both programs do fall under the Strengthening Medicare banner.
Digital capability was the most popular stream, with grants going to 4844 of the 7607 eligible GP clinics.
“Many practices saw this as an important opportunity to make significant IT investments, such as on new servers, computers, or workstations, which they otherwise would have struggled to afford,” the review read.
“They reported that these investments have had immediate benefits for their practices in terms of improved efficiency and data security.
“Digital infrastructure requires significant upfront investment, which many practices noted they struggled to prioritise under current economic conditions until a piece of equipment or system stopped working.”
The main critique from the review team was that the cash did not address underlying issues like broadband infrastructure in rural areas; the best computer in the world would be somewhat useless with a spotty wifi connection.
Still, practices in rural and regional areas were significantly more likely than metro practices to report that their video telehealth capacity had significantly improved following grant funding, despite a similar percentage spend on digital telehealth equipment across the two cohorts.
The reviewers felt that this may be indicative of the fact that rural clinics were starting from a lower baseline in terms of telehealth capability.
Practices in rural and regional areas also reported receiving cold calls from practice software companies trying to sell $25,000 worth of services around the same time that they received their grant.
Accreditation was the next most popular funding stream, with 3950 grants given out.
Here, feedback indicated that while the funding was welcome, the one-off nature of the grants did not provide a sustainable solution for practices to maintain accreditation, nor were the grants big enough to help unaccredited practices earn accreditation.
The funding was also only relevant for practices that had accreditation coming up in the near future; those that had passed accreditation in 2022, for instance, had no use for it.
“Practices who found this stream most useful tended to use it on a combination of clinical equipment and workforce support to help cover the additional workload from the accreditation process,” the reviewers said.
Infection prevention trailed behind the other two streams, at 3327 grants in total.
According to the reviewers, feedback suggested that – similar to the practices which had just outlaid costs on accreditation – a large number of GP clinics had beefed up their infection prevention and control equipment over the pandemic.
“Practices who found this stream most useful tended to use it on a combination of clinical equipment and workforce support to help cover the additional workload from the accreditation process,” they wrote.
When practices were asked to name the top three most pressing areas of need, workforce, MBS reform and investment in preventative health came out on top.
Discussions with PHNs yielded similar results, with workforce concerns taking out the top place.
“Some PHNs felt that the $220m committed to the program could have been used more effectively to support MBS reform,” the reviewers said.
“One PHN suggested that the government could have provided larger grants for bigger, shared solutions such as subscriptions to digital platforms that could be shared by multiple practice and give them access to upgrades, they would otherwise be unable to afford.
“One group of practices pooled the money across multiple clinics to implement large IT upgrades, noting that the upgrades would have been significantly more expensive individually.”
