Transforming Primary Care: Leveraging Integrated Primary Health care Data to Improve Primary Health Outcomes

Start Date

1 July 2025

End Date

31 July 2026

Project Participants

WentWest (Western Sydney PHN), Western Sydney University

Status: Completed

Tags: acute care, dashboards, data linkage, general practice, local health districts (LHDs), primary care, primary health networks (PHNs)

Opportunity 

When health information is separated across different systems, clinicians can struggle to see the full picture of a patient’s care. This can make it harder to identify risks early, coordinate treatment and prevent avoidable hospital visits. 

This project addressed that challenge by creating a secure, integrated health data platform that connects information from general practice and hospitals across Western Sydney.  

By bringing these datasets together, clinicians can gain a more complete view of patient care journeys and make better-informed decisions to improve health outcomes. 

Objectives 

  • Develop data infrastructure and establish an ongoing secure local-level linkage capability 
  • Develop dynamic visualisation dashboards that provide General Practitioners (GPs) patient trajectories across primary and acute care services 
  • Establish scalable infrastructure for broader PHN deployment.  

The project successfully delivered a secure data-sharing platform that enables health data from multiple organisations to be safely linked while maintaining privacy and security. 

Key achievements include: 

  • Establishing a secure and trusted approach to linking primary care and hospital data. 
  • Delivering operational dashboards for pilot GP practices, providing new insights into patient care pathways. 
  • Strengthening local expertise in digital health and data linkage. 
  • Building strong partnerships between healthcare, research and health system organisations to support future innovation and collaboration. 

The platform also provides a foundation for expansion to additional GP clinics and broader regional deployment.

This project has laid the groundwork for a more connected and data-informed primary healthcare system. By giving clinicians better visibility of patient care across settings, the initiative supports earlier intervention, improved care coordination and better health outcomes for patients. 

The new infrastructure also creates opportunities for future predictive analytics and population health insights, helping health services identify people at risk earlier and target care where it is needed most. The project aligns with emerging national approaches to integrated healthcare data and demonstrates how connected information can support a stronger, more proactive health system. 

Integrity, Excellence,
Teamwork and Authenticity

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