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Hospital Benchmark Information
28 August 2007
Room For Improvement In Hospital Benchmark Information
The performance of Waikato District Health Board’s seven hospitals leaves room for improvement but the work has begun.
Health services general manager Jan Adams today (Tues) said the release of two new Ministry of Health reports on hospital services, which track the performance of all public hospitals in New Zealand against a variety of key performance measures, highlighted a number of issues for Waikato DHB.
The reports were for the first two quarters of the financial year ending December 2006. Since then two more quarters had been completed.
“There are opportunities to improve in some areas and the work is underway,” she said.
Going through the reports, she said the number of resignations at the DHB were up slightly but were still below the national trend.
“Obviously we are not complacent and we collect data or reasons for staff leaving and as well we offer staff exit interviews when they resign,” said Mrs Adams.
While Waikato DHB’s sick
leave use was higher than average a pilot project,
implemented in 2002 within the nursing service at Waikato
Hospital aimed at improving staff wellness, was being
evaluated, she said.
Workplace injuries were much lower
than the national average and had fallen further since the
previous report.
Mrs Adams said the triage one emergency treatment category was of concern. It was taken across all the DHB which included Waikato Hospital, all four T hospitals – Taumarunui, Tokoroa, Te Kuiti and Thames – and Rhoda Read (Morrinsville) and Matariki (Te Awamutu).
“Generally we have tracked to the required
percentage but further work is being done to improve our
triage times in general.”
Mrs Adams said a number of
factors can skew the triage time figures including incidents
like the Korean bus crash earlier this year which put
pressure on Tokoroa Hospital’s emergency
department.
Triage two and three categories were also of concern but Mrs Adams said last week’s Health Waikato Advisory Committee meeting was told triage two was now at a better level.
This followed the decision to put the clinical nurse specialist role into place and involve GPs working alongside Emergency Department staff at weekends to understand the self referrals to the department out of hours.
“Acute re-admissions, while slightly up, are way below the national average and are fairly consistent across the past two years – between 26-27 per cent.”
Mrs Adams said the length of stay was above the national average but this was influenced by the rural nature of the Waikato DHB which covers 21,220sq km or 7.9 per cent of New Zealand’s land area.
“Patients from out of town are either readmitted the day before surgery or may stay over until the next day following a procedure. This has been accepted as an issue unique to us,” she said.
“In all the patient satisfaction areas we are above the national average even if marginally in a couple of areas and we always strive to improve our performance.”
More could be done in the day case procedure category, she said.
“Services are looking at which procedures could be transferred to day surgery however the rural factor is also an influencer.
“Equally day of surgery admissions are on the radar as a way to improve and we are always looking at bringing people in on the day of surgery as opposed to the night before.”
Medical services staff had put huge efforts into streamlining much of their inpatient services which would impact on the length of stay as would the event-initiated discharge projects led by the Star programme aimed at improving the patient journey.
Staff costs for medical and nursing personnel were above the national average while management, administration and support staff costs were below the national average, said Mrs Adams.
ENDS
Waikato District Health Board
Healthy People. Excellent Care
Waikato District Health Board (DHB) employs over 6500 people and plans, funds and provides hospital and health services to more than 391,770 people in a region covering eight per cent of New Zealand.
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