Disseminating current and authoritative advice to key clinical stakeholder groups about COVID-19 and the rapidly evolving understanding as to its implications for clinical care was a foundation piece – and sometimes a challenging one – in implementing the NSW public health response.
Recognising that GPs and pharmacists in NSW were integral to a resilient, effective public health response, a program of COVID-19 updates was established, drawing on the expertise of the Chief Health Officer/Deputy Chief Health Officer. Among a myriad of other stakeholder engagement activities, the Chief Health Officer regularly provided updates to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), Australian Medical Association, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, and the Pharmacy Guild. For example, she participated in at least 39 COVID-19 update webinars for RACGP members between 2020 and August 2022. These were sometimes interactive and always highly subscribed. Of those with available attendance data, the average GP attendance was 412 per session with a 73% recurrence rate (that is, 73% of participants attended more than one COVID-19 update).
The Deputy Chief Health Officer also presented at two webinars for the 31 NSW Health COVID-19 communities of practice, focused specifically on the COVID-19 vaccination program. The number of attendees at the two webinars was in the order of 1000 and 500, respectively.
These webinars were a modality of necessity, given restrictions as well as efficiency. They created an enormous opportunity to reach thousands of GPs, pharmacists, and other health professionals with the most up-to-date information relevant to their practice.
Julie Letts1, Julia King 2
