Local Waves

An APCC Program local wave will feature a series of workshops run by your network, or network group, in your local area. Local workshops are planned and delivered by the network, with the support of the Improvement Foundation. Participants generally take much less time out of practice to attend a local workshop than they do to attend a state based APCC Program workshop.

At the workshops participants share ideas and experiences with other each other. This helps participants to make improvements back at their practices. In between workshops, practices will have time called ‘activity periods' where they'll be able to use the Model for Improvement and PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) cycles to implement changes in small manageable cycles and identify where change actually leads to improvement.

Local wave practices in the first phase of the Program achieved some outstanding improvements:

  • 37% improvement in the number of patients with CHD whose last recorded blood pressure within the last 12 months was less than 140/90mmHg
  • 207% improvement in the percentage of patients with diabetes whose last measured total cholesterol was less than 4 mmol/l within the previous 12 month
  • 43% improvement in the number of patients with diabetes whose last recorded blood pressure within the last 12 months was less than or equal to 130/90mmHg within the previous 12 month
  • 130% improvement in the percentage of patients with diabetes that had a diabetes Service Incentive Payment (SIP) claimed for them within the last 12 months.

Local waves are currently focussed on the topic areas of Diabetes, Coronary Heart Disease and Access & Care Redesign.

For more information on local waves, click here.

Closing the Gap

The Improvement Foundation is launching the 'Closing the Gap' local wave in June 2010. This local wave has been specifically designed to support health services to improve access to services and health outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This exciting initiative is being launched in Queensland with interest expressed by 10 Divisions, who plan on supporting approximately 50 health services. The Improvement Foundation is working towards expanding this Program nationally and is currently in early discussions with the Victorian State Based Organisation.


For more information about Closing the Gap, click here.

The Collaboratives methodology is now embedded in our practice...
we will be looking to apply our learnings to other areas of the
practice such as asthma, immunisation and mental health.”

Dr Vadlamudi,
Biota Street Medical Centre, QLD,
Local wave practice.

National and State based | Virtual | combined State & Virtual.

Last Updated 24 February 2011