A new report reveals some of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on general practice in Australia. The data used is poised to shed light on how COVID-19 affects long-term health.
NPS MedicineWise today released the fifth General Practice Insights report. It examines de-identified data from around 2.5 million patients in 2020-21 from the MedicineInsight program.
MedicineInsight, operated by the independent, not-for-profit NPS MedicineWise, contains data from clinical software from consenting GP practices. The dataset covers 10.8% of all Australian GPs and 11.4% of all patients seen by GPs nationally. This is a similar sample to the general patient population in terms of age, gender, and socioeconomic status.
The data shows common chronic health conditions and aspects of patient care.
The report lists the top 5 non-communicable conditions recorded in 2020-21. These include hypertension, depression, anxiety disorders, lower back pain and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD or acid reflux). »
Dr Caroline West, GP and spokesperson for NPS MedicineWise.
“The report also shows how prescriptions have changed during the pandemic.
“At the start of the pandemic, in March 2020, there were stocks of all classes of drugs that we studied. The prescription then returned to normal for most classes.
The prescription for certain classes of drugs, however, has not returned to normal levels. Since April 2020, doctors have been prescribing fewer antibiotics. This has been particularly striking during major lockdowns. One explanation could be that people had fewer respiratory infections due to public health measures implemented during lockdowns.
The report shows that people are using telehealth more during COVID-19 outbreaks. This phenomenon peaked around April 2020 and September 2021, during the first outbreak of COVID-19 and the Delta wave.
MedicineInsight includes records of vaccinations and COVID-19 infections. There were nearly 11,000 people in the dataset with recorded COVID-19 infection through December 2021.
“Although reports of COVID-19 infections were recorded in the dataset, the number was not high at the time the data was collected,” says Dr. West.
“However, COVID-19 infections increased dramatically in 2022 and we would now expect a much higher number of cases to appear in the dataset.
“MedicineInsight’s dataset could be a valuable resource for exploring the long-term health impact of COVID-19 in the future.
“MedicineInsight is only possible thanks to Australian GPs sharing their data.
depersonalized data. Combined with the excellent data governance framework, MedicineInsight data is increasingly being used to improve healthcare delivery and ultimately the health of Australians,” she says.
To read the full General Practice Insights 2020-21 report, visit www.nps.org.au/medicine-insight.