Primary Care education and outreach
17 July 2023
The ASA Commonwealth Program has been developing and promoting evidence-based sleep health resources for general practitioners, psychologists, and nurses over the past 12 months. Thank you to everyone that has contributed to the primary care education activities of the ASA and the achievements of the program so far!
General practitioner education;
- Agreement with RACGP to continue hosting 3 sleep health/disorder education modules on gpLearning (2 modules updated by the National Centre for Sleep Health Services research, and one paediatric module being updated by a ASA Working Party),
- Co-ordinating 9 commissioned sleep health articles for the Australian Journal of General Practice,
- ASA Primary Care council webinar on Primary Care management of less common sleep disorders, 91 registrants,
- Feedback on the RACGP Healthy Habits program inclusion of sleep health,
- Sleep Health articles in; NewsGP, and Australian Doctor.
- Presentation to the RACGP Mental Health specific interest group, 144 registrants
- Launched online GP insomnia and OSA Guideline at GP22,
- Qualitative interviews with GPs on the online GP Guideline,
- Developed ASA GP Guideline Governance subcommittee,
- Co-ordinated 7 HealthEd sleep health/disorder podcasts with ASA members,
- Insomnia presentation to GoodFellow Unit, 450 registrants,
- Co-ordinating a GP Education Campaign with GPEx including 4 in-person sleep health workshops and 2 webinars,
- Skill-Building session accepted for WONCA 2023.
Psychologist education;
- Formal agreement with Australian Psychological Society,
- Co-ordinated two 2-day CBT-i workshops with International experts Michael Perlis and Donn Posner, 86 attendees,
- Survey of CBT-i workshop attendee changes in insomnia management behaviour,
- ASA Behavioural Management of Sleep Disorders education subcommittee hosted four professional development sessions on CBT-i,
- Feature article on CBT-i in InPsych, magazine of the APS,
- Developing on-demand CBT-i education module with APS.
Nurse education;
- Agreement with the Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association to co-ordinate sleep health education and promotion campaign to provide scholarships for 6 nurses to attend Sleep DownUnder 2023,
- Working with ASA nurse members to identify needs, existing resources, and opportunities to develop sleep health education resources for nurses,
- Presenting preventive sleep health presentation at APNA’s Festival of Nursing, 2023.
The funding has also supported important ASA member consultation, advocacy, Committee and Council activities, including;
- Administrative support for existing ASA Councils, Committees, and specific Working Groups,
- Five roundtable and state-based meetings in Melbourne, Adelaide and Canberra,
- Administrative support for an Adult Polysomnography guideline,
- Preventative sleep health symposium at Sleep DownUnder, 2023,
- Feedback on National Rail Critical Safety Worker Guideline medical working group,
- Representative of the Expert Working Group, Mitchell Institute document on sleep health policy recommendations,
- Promoting Black Dog Institute ‘Sleep Ninja’ app to association members,
- Joint submission with the Sleep Health Foundation on Long-COVID Parliamentary Inquiry,
- Joint submission with the Sleep Health Foundation on Sleep and ADHD to Senate Inquiry into Assessment and Support Services for People with ADHD.