Implications for practice
EVENTS
Digital infrastructure, coupled with innovative solutions, enables the promotion of care coordination at scale, opening new perspectives for precision public-health initiatives. As well as their importance in usual public-health contexts, the results suggest that solutions using existing digital infrastructures can be useful in emergency-preparedness systems, adding to the list described in Whitelaw This study was one of the first nationwide programmes to use centralised health information to support GPs in caring for patients who were vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Australia, involving GPs is key in maintaining adequate care. Given their distributed geographical location and the multitude of clinical software in use, adequate targeting was only possible because of the existence of mature claims databases, which are routinely updated and contain useful clinical information. The results suggest a wider collaboration between public-health officials and GPs could improve efficiency and direct the use of health resources towards patients in need.This study reinforces the value of developing solutions fit for context using iterative and participatory processes. Finding the right level of complexity of any digital health intervention is particularly susceptible to context change.Future research will investigate how the intervention can be further personalised, profiting from the capacity to create dynamic documents and use the internet for additional education and enhanced practice auditing. It will also evaluate intervention effectiveness on clinical outcome measures, drawing on long-term longitudinal data.This study demonstrated that digital delivery (via a secure-messaging infrastructure) promoted visits to the primary GP, and is one of the first to show the feasibility and increased efficacy of a digital intervention to coordinate care at national level during emergencies. Similar solutions can be adapted as a response to emergency events to ensure the care continuation of populations who are vulnerable.Veterans’ MATES is provided by the University of South Australia, Quality Use of Medicines and Pharmacy Research Centre, University of South Australia, in association with Discipline of General Practice, The University of Adelaide; Discipline of Public Health, The University of Adelaide; Repatriation General Hospital, Daw Park, South Australia; NPS MedicineWise — Better Choices, Better Health; 