Main description:

This book provides a summary of results from the 18th year of the University of Sydney's BEACH program, a continuous national study of general practice activity in Australia. The BEACH program closed in 2016, after 18 years of continuous data collection. From April 2015 to March 2016, 965 general practitioners (GPs) recorded details of 96,500 GP-patient encounters, at which patients presented 149,084 reasons for encounter and 150,279 problems were managed. For an 'average' 100 problems managed, GPs recorded 66 medications (including 53 prescribed, 6 supplied to the patient and 7 advised for over-the-counter purchase), 11 procedures, 25 clinical treatments (advice and counselling), 6 referrals to specialists and 4 to allied health services, 31 orders for pathology tests and 7 for imaging tests. A subsample study of measured risk factors in more than 31,000 patients suggests that in the adult (18 years and over) population who attended general practice at least once in 2014-15 the prevalence of obesity was 28 per cent, overweight was 34 per cent, daily smoking was 16 per cent, and at-risk alcohol consumption was 25per cent. One in four people in the attending population had at least two of these risk factors. This book also contains a feature chapter examining changes in the care of 'middle-aged' people (aged between 45 and 64 years) in general practice over 16 years 2000-01 to 2015-16.A companion publication, A Decade of Australian General Practice Activity 2006-07 to 2015-16 is also available.

Contents:

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of tables
List of figures
Summary 1. Introduction
2. Methods
3. The sample
4. The participating GPs
5. The encounters
6. The patients
7. Problems managed
8. Overview of management
9. Medications
10. Other treatments
11. Referrals and admissions
12. Investigations
13. Patient risk factors
14. Care of middle-aged people in general practice
15. SAND abstracts and research tools
References
Abbreviations
Symbols
Glossary
Appendix 1: example of a 2015a16 recording form
Appendix 2: GP characteristics questionnaire, 2015a16
Appendix 3: patient information card, 2015a16
Appendix 4: code groups from ICPC-2 and ICPC-2 PLUS
Appendix 5: calculation methods for table 14.1