Interactive PDSA workbook Pilot version

Results handling in general practice

Fill this in as your practice works through a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle on clearing unactioned results and correspondence, then keeping the backlog down. Your answers save automatically on this computer. Come back over weeks or months and pick up where you left off. Written so the practice manager can drive it. Nothing here needs clinical training.

AuthorDr Chris Mitchell AM, FAICD

CPD hoursEA + RP + MO (worked cycle 30: EA 4, RP 23, MO 3)

TimelineAcross about five months

Last savednot yet

Before you start: how this workbook saves

Type into the dashed magenta boxes. Each one shows an example answer above it. If you are not sure what to write, say the same kind of thing about your own practice.
Your answers save by themselves as you type, on this computer, in this browser. Close the tab, come back next week, everything will still be here. Check the 'Last saved' date on the cover.
Use one computer for the whole cycle, usually the practice manager's. If someone else needs to add their part, click Save to file, email them the file, and they click Load from file on their computer. Then they save to file and send it back.
Click Save to file at the end of every session. It downloads a small file. Keep it in your practice records folder. It is your backup if this computer is cleaned, replaced or reset.
When the cycle is finished, click Print / Save as PDF and choose 'Save as PDF'. That PDF is what the GPs upload as evidence to the RACGP CPD portal, and what you keep for accreditation.

One caution: clearing the browser's history or cache can delete your saved answers. The Save to file backup protects you.

This workbook is a pilot. If something is confusing or does not work on your computer, tell us via the contact page so we can fix it.

Your progress

0 of 0 fields completed. This is a long activity. Do a section, close the tab, come back next week.

The four stages

PlanPick the problem. Decide what you will count and who does what.

DoRun the change. Hold the meetings. Record the numbers as you go.

StudyCompare the numbers across the weeks. Write down what you noticed.

ActKeep what worked. Drop what did not. Make the good changes permanent.

The shaded boxes show you what to write

Every question carries the answer from Dr Chris Mitchell's own results handling cycle, run in his practice across the first half of 2026. You do not need to invent anything: read the example, then write the same kind of answer about your practice. The dashed magenta boxes are yours.

The learning: where your educational hours come from

Part of the cycle is educational activities (EA). In a results cycle the EA hours come from practice meetings and, above all, your vendor's results and messaging training. It is the most overlooked EA time in this topic: people do the training and forget to record it.

The full background sits in the results handling guide: why an unclosed loop is a clinical risk, how automated patient messaging turns reviewing a result into patient notification, and the habit that keeps the backlog down. Read it as a team at a practice meeting and log the time as EA.

Read the background for this cycle

Resources you can share with the team

Your messaging vendor's results training (for Automed practices, the Results messaging in Best Practice module is the one that matters most)
Institute for Healthcare Improvement: Model for Improvement and PDSA cycles
RACGP Standards for general practices: continuous quality improvement requirements
Your PHN, for PIP QI submission and data-extraction support

For the practice manager

Email the guide page to every GP and nurse before the education meeting, so the reading is done by the time everyone sits down. The hours they spend reading and discussing it, and the vendor training they watch, count toward EA. This workbook records the rest.

Plan

Topic, idea and plan

Topic: what is this PDSA about?

Example

Closing the loop on unactioned results and correspondence, and keeping the backlog down.

The idea you are testing

Example

Results and correspondence that are not marked as actioned create a clinical risk. The record does not show whether the loop is closed, so the next doctor cannot tell whether to raise the result or leave it. We test whether a shared clearance protocol, plus actioning results at each visit, reduces the backlog and keeps it down.

Plan: what you will do and what you will count

Example

Audit the practice database for unactioned results. Categorise by urgency: urgent review, non-urgent review, and no action. Agree a clearance protocol at a team meeting. Track the time each doctor spends clearing their list. Re-measure monthly and record the reduction over one quarter. Note any patient-safety issue found along the way and act on it immediately.

Aims: what does success look like, in numbers?

Example

Establish a baseline count of unactioned results and correspondence by urgency. Clear the urgent-review backlog first, contacting any patient where the record does not show the matter was resolved. Reduce the non-urgent and no-action backlog over one quarter. Embed a habit of actioning results at each visit so the backlog does not rebuild.

Meeting and clearance schedule

Chris's practice ran the cycle across the first half of 2026, with a planning meeting, several learning-together meetings and a closing data report. Type your dates in as each one happens. These dates become part of the CPD evidence, so keep them accurate.

Milestone	Date
Planning meeting: agree the approach with GPs and nurses
Learning together meeting 1
Learning together meeting 2: database search actions issued
Learning together meeting 3
Learning together meeting 4
Closing data report
RACGP portal upload (GPs log their hours)

Study

Data collection

Run the database search at baseline, then again partway through and at the close. Enter the counts here. Numbers only in the boxes (60, not '60 results'). The change column works itself out.

Example

Our baseline confirmed the scale: roughly 60 urgent reviews outstanding since 2000, about 30 of them in the previous year, and non-urgent reviews in the thousands. Each GP worked their own recall report and logged the time. The urgent backlog was cleared, and the non-urgent and no-action backlog fell sharply once the print-and-mark shortcut was adopted.

What you are counting	Baseline	Midpoint	Close	Change

What we learned

Example

Actioning results and correspondence at each visit made the difference. The search for unactioned items is easy but time-consuming. Marking off no-action items outside a consultation is mostly busy work, though it does tidy the database. Following up urgent and non-urgent reviews matters even outside a consultation. We learned a new shortcut for marking off correspondence, which has to be actioned one item at a time.

Act

What to keep and make permanent

Example

At every visit, all doctors review the patient's results and correspondence and mark them off as discussed, check the action list, and make sure outstanding items are attended to or the patient is rebooked with their usual GP. The clearing happens while the patient is in attendance, in person or by telehealth. Old no-action correspondence more than a year old can be cleared in bulk. Where a patient is contacted or recalled, the record is flagged so the team can see.

CPD hours

Count the hours each GP spent. Practice meetings and the vendor results training count as EA. The backlog audit, the logged clearance time and the monthly counts count as RP, and this is where a results cycle earns most of its hours. Running the cycle itself counts as MO. The total adds up automatically. When in doubt, the GP lead decides what to claim.

Activity type	Hours	Evidence you already have
Educational activities (EA)		Practice meeting attendance, the vendor results and messaging training
Reviewing performance (RP)		The backlog audit, each doctor's logged clearance time, the monthly counts
Measuring outcomes (MO)		This completed workbook, meeting dates, the reports
Total	0	GPs submit as a GP-led activity via RACGP myCPD Home

The vendor results training is the easiest EA time to claim, and the easiest to forget

Watching your messaging vendor's results module as a team is the most direct source of EA hours in this cycle. Log the time while you are there, because it is the part practices most often forget to claim.

Reflections (the GPs write these)

The RACGP asks each GP to reflect on three areas. Hand the computer to the GP lead for this bit, or collect a sentence or two from each GP at the follow-up meeting and type them in. There is no worked example here: these have to be your own.

Culturally safe practice Professional and health inequities Ethical practice

Participating doctors

One per line. This is for your records so nobody has to reconstruct it at portal-upload time.