A new Australian framework aims to provide a consistent way of measuring the quality of care delivered by general practice, with its developers flagging its potential use in quality improvement and future funding models.
The framework is being highlighted as NSW Health’s Lumos program prepares to mark its 10th anniversary at NSW Parliament House on Monday.
The Quality, Equity and Systems Transformation in Primary Health Care (QUEST-PHC) framework has been developed with primary care clinicians and GPs and was validated through a Delphi consensus study published in PLOS ONE in 2025.
Its developers are aiming to establish a comprehensive, evidence-based and professionally endorsed tool for analysing and reporting data across different components of high-quality general practice.
Lumos links de-identified general practice and hospital data to generate research findings designed to inform health policy and demonstrate the value of primary care.
Professor Anne-Marie Feyer, Board Chair of WentWest – Western Sydney Primary Health Network and co-chief investigator for Lumos, said the program was designed to use health data to improve service delivery.
“Lumos is an ethically approved ongoing, multi-user, multi-purpose data asset designed to deliver benefits to the community through informing data driven improvements to health service delivery,” Professor Feyer said.
A NSW Health cost-benefit analysis using Lumos data found each dollar paid through Medicare rebates at practices included in the study delivered a $1.60 benefit to the NSW health system.
The analysis found the benefit was higher among younger age groups, with every Medicare dollar returning $3.24 for children aged zero to nine, $1.96 for people aged 10 to 19, $2.21 for those aged 20 to 29 and $2.82 for people aged 30 to 39.
Measuring general practice quality
While the Lumos research has examined the financial benefits associated with primary care, the researchers behind QUEST-PHC are seeking to develop a standardised approach to measuring the quality of care itself.
The 2025 QUEST-PHC study pointed to limitations in existing general practice quality measurement, including inconsistencies in data collected through the Practice Incentives Program – Quality Improvement (PIP QI).
PIP QI, launched by the Australian Government in August 2019, collects general practice data and provides incentive payments to participating practices, while Primary Health Networks use the data for local quality improvement activities and needs assessments.
The QUEST-PHC study authors said there was a lack of consistency across PHNs in the content and quality of data collected and in the quality improvement outcomes achieved.
They said PIP QI was designed to incentivise data contribution and local improvement activity rather than provide a standardised and comparable measure of care quality across the health system.
The researchers also cite an AIHW report that found the 10 Quality Improvement Measures provide information on data completeness, including whether smoking status or HbA1c is accurately recorded in patient records, but do not measure health outcomes or disease control.
Professor Penny Abbott, a GP, said measuring primary care should extend beyond its impact on hospital use.
“What passes as integrated care is often just hospital avoidance,” Prof Abbott said.
“The focus needs to be on supporting general practice to provide the care that is needed to improve people’s quality of life and to advance health equity.”
Funding potential
QUEST-PHC’s developers say the framework could provide a more comprehensive approach to analysing and reporting general practice quality.
Its overall aim is to develop a tool covering the components of high-quality general practice, with the resulting measures intended to inform quality improvement.
The researchers have also flagged the framework’s potential to inform alternative funding models.
They noted the developments come as Lumos reached a decade of using linked general practice and hospital data to examine primary care and health system performance, including the relationship between Medicare spending and costs elsewhere in the NSW health system.
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