Essential terms and definitions for GP clinics and healthcare automation
Standardised Whole Patient Equivalent - A measure used by Medicare to calculate practice size and funding eligibility. SWPE values weight patients by age and gender, with elderly patients counting more than younger ones. Use our SWPE calculator to estimate your practice's value.
Practice Incentives Program - An Australian government initiative providing financial incentives to general practices for quality care, after-hours services, and rural support. Includes PIP QI (Quality Improvement) payments based on SWPE values.
Workforce Incentive Program - Formerly the Practice Nurse Incentive Program, WIP supports practices employing nurses and allied health professionals. Payments depend on practice SWPE, location (MMM classification), and staff hours worked.
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners - The professional body responsible for setting standards for general practice in Australia. RACGP accreditation ensures practices meet quality and safety standards.
Medicare Benefits Schedule - The list of health professional services subsidised by the Australian government. MBS item numbers determine rebate amounts for consultations, procedures, and care plans.
Practice Incentives Program - Quality Improvement - A PIP payment stream rewarding practices for continuous quality improvement. Requires practices to submit data on clinical indicators and participate in improvement activities.
Modified Monash Model - A classification system determining rural and remote status for healthcare funding. Ranges from MM1 (major cities) to MM7 (very remote), affecting WIP payments and other incentives.
Chronic Disease Management - Medicare-subsidised care planning for patients with chronic conditions. Includes GP Management Plans (GPMP) and Team Care Arrangements (TCA) with MBS item numbers.
Practice Management System - Software used to manage patient records, appointments, billing, and clinical workflows. Popular Australian PMS platforms include Best Practice, Medical Director, and Zedmed.
eHealth Practice Incentives Program - Payments to practices for adopting digital health technologies, including secure messaging, electronic prescriptions, and My Health Record usage.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation - An AI technique combining information retrieval with text generation. In healthcare, RAG allows AI systems to provide accurate answers based on your clinic's specific documents and protocols.
The use of technology to automate repetitive tasks and processes in healthcare settings. Examples include automated appointment reminders, care plan generation, and pathology result notifications.
Application Programming Interface - A connection allowing different software systems to communicate. API integrations enable your PMS to sync with automation tools, booking systems, and clinical software.
Robotic Process Automation - Software bots that mimic human actions to perform repetitive digital tasks. In clinics, RPA can handle data entry, form processing, and report generation.
Health Level 7 - A set of international standards for transferring clinical and administrative data between healthcare software systems. Enables interoperability between different health IT systems.
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources - A modern standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically. FHIR enables seamless data sharing between apps, devices, and healthcare systems.
A branch of AI enabling computers to understand and generate human language. Used in healthcare for transcribing consultations, extracting information from clinical notes, and automated documentation.
AI systems that learn and improve from experience without explicit programming. In healthcare, ML predicts patient outcomes, identifies at-risk patients, and optimizes appointment scheduling.