RX Global ThinkGP platform has become the ‘go to’ place for Australian GPs at the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to the team’s quick, community-minded response.

RX Global is Australia’s largest private provider of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) education for GPs and other healthcare professionals through its General Practice Conference & Exhibition (GPCE) and online education platform, ThinkGP.

With a user base of 53,000+ primary care professionals, ThinkGP focuses on GPs who are required to complete a fixed number of CPD points in order to maintain their medical license.

In early March, as the gravity of the COVID-19 situation became clear, the ThinkGP team wanted to contribute to their community of healthcare professionals who are toughing it out on the frontline of the pandemic.

“We read in the medical media that GPs were being bombarded with updates from many different sources which it was impossible to keep up with” says Mike Simmonds, Director of Reed Medical Education. “They wanted one repository of practical, up-to-date information that they could trust, and visit regularly to keep abreast of key updates. ThinkGP was ideally placed to provide this vital service as the majority of GPs in Australia are registered to complete education with us – we have 25K GPs on our database, as well as other healthcare professionals. They are all familiar with the platform and trust our CPD-accredited education, having engaged with it over the years.”

Multiple challenges

Working flat out, Head of Content Andrea Deely and her team had their incredible COVID-19 educational resource up and ready within a week, but the challenges are ongoing due to the super-rapid progression of both the pandemic and response.

“As we were developing the education, changes were happening hourly, so we had to make several updates even before we launched” explains Simmonds.  “We are now updating twice a week, as well as providing a lot of links to trusted pages and information that is updated daily. It means that the education doesn’t look as engaging as usual but we hope is highly practical and useful. These are different times, calling for a different approach.”

Another challenge, given how much misinformation is flying about right now, is making sure the information is clinically credible and locally relevant. The team are primarily using trusted Government, WHO, and local GP fellowship recommendations. Different states in Australia can have different policies and procedures that are also rapidly changing, so the team also need to ensure they are up to date not just nationally, but state-by-state.

Record enrolments

Within a week of its launch, 1,350 health care professionals had enrolled in, and over 600 had completed the COVID-19 module, a ThinkGP record. In order for GPs to claim their points, they need to complete an evaluation. Sample comments included: “Thank you very much for providing this timely information and updating it” and “I think this is fantastic as it is highly informative and provides a great guide for dealing with the current pandemic.”

“These results are a huge credit to Andrea and her team. Their dedication is making a real difference, by empowering GPs give their patients the best possible care” says Simmonds.