The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has announced the Prospect Medical Centre, Tasmania, as the worthy winner of the 2012 RACGP General Practice of the Year Award.
Designed to recognise practices for their approach to patients’ health and wellbeing, the award criteria takes into account a number of factors including the services on offer to patients, the health promotion initiatives in place, the provision of high quality care and the practice’s involvement in general practice teaching.
Presenting the Award at the RACGP’s annual conference, Dr Liz Marles, RACGP President, acknowledged the significant efforts made by the Prospect Medical Centre to continually improve the services and care on offer to the practice’s patients.
“Prospect Medical Centre has taken a forward approach with its Chronic Disease management, offering coordinated cycles of care programs to patient’s chronic illnesses such as heart disease and diabetes,” Dr Marles said.
The programs are driven by the GPs and registered nurses, but include an on-site allied health team which includes a dietician, diabetes educator, podiatrist, psychologist, mental health nurse and an exercise physiologist.
“The practice offers a diverse range of general practice service as well as specific care programs targeting preventative health such as healthy women’s clinics and skin care.
“In addition to high quality service offerings, the practice also prides itself on delivering an overall positive patient experience. Recent initiatives include an online appointment booking system and the provision of telehealth consultations,” said Dr Marles.
The practice also demonstrates a commitment to providing training and education of the next generation of GPs, offering RACGP-accredited Registrar training, training of medical students from the University of Tasmania, and orientation of overseas trained GPs.
Accepting the award on behalf of the Prospect Medical Centre team, Dr Frank Brunacci and Dr John Ballantyne, practice principals, said they were extremely proud of each and every team member for the holistic care delivered passionately to the community of Prospect.
“We are extremely fortunate to have such a dedicated group of health professionals working under the same roof. Together, we continually strive to ensure every aspect of our patients’ health needs are met,” Dr Brunacci said.
“The practice is also grateful to have the excellent support services which are offered to general practice through organisations such as RACGP, Health Recruitment Plus, Tasmania Medicare Local and General Practice Tasmania, which have been extremely valuable in assisting the practice in service development and improvement.
I would like to congratulate the practice team on achieving this significant recognition and thank our patients for engaging with the health services we so passionately work to deliver,” Dr Brunacci concluded.
For more information on the 2012 RACGP Award categories, visit www.racgp.org.au/awards.