Strenthening care for children: pilot of a novel, integrated general practitioner-paediatrician model

Abstract

Introduction: Over the past two decades, Australia’s child population has grown by 12%, yet fewer children are seen by General Practitioners (GP) (Freed, 2011) and more present to emergency departments (Freed, 2015) and hospital outpatient clinics for relatively simple conditions that could be managed in primary care. We therefore aimed to co-develop and pilot an innovative, integrated GP-paediatrician care model and test its feasibility and acceptability to GPs, families and paediatricians, across 5 Victorian (Australia) general practices.Theory/Methods: GP and paediatrician co-design of an integrated care model comprising: weekly GP-paediatrician co-consulting sessions and monthly hour-lon..