ADHB ends 2007 financial year

NEWS RELEASE

ADHB ends 2007 financial year

* ahead of treatment targets

* ahead of budget

People in the Auckland region have been the beneficiaries of a huge collective effort by management, clinical and nursing staff and support people at the Auckland District Health Board over the past year, says Board Chairman Wayne Brown.

"It is really satisfying to be able to report that the ADHB has completed the 2006-07 year well ahead of budget financially while treating more people in our hospitals than in the previous year," says Mr Brown.

"Financially, the ADHB has nearly eradicated the large losses of previous years by improving its result by $35million over the previous year."

The budgeted deficit for the ADHB for 2006-07 was $20 million, with the final result showing a $10.7 million deficit. For the next financial year (2007-08) the ADHB financial target is a break even position.

"This year's result was not at the expense of health outcomes. Rather, the organisation pulled together to improve efficiencies and seek better ways of doing things," says Mr Brown.

There were significant improvements across many services.

"Of note was a more than 12% increase in elective surgery for the ADHB population and a significant 17% increase in opthamology (eye) out-patients."

The ADHB achieved full compliance with the Ministry of Health's waiting list requirements for elective surgery.

"I am also pleased to see initiatives gaining ground in the fields of Maori and Pacific Island health as well as within older persons' services and milestones celebrated such as the 100th lung transplant."

Mr Brown has chaired District Health Boards and their forerunners for 15 years and says while he has overseen financial and productivity gains every year for each of those 15 years, this result is one of the most satisfying.

"With the financial issues under better control, more time has been spent with clinical directors and clinical leaders on productivity and this is certainly evident in these results.

"The ADHB looks forward to continuing clinical quality initiatives in coming years.

"This is a result that people can be proud of and my thanks go to my fellow Board members, the multi-disciplinary clinical teams and to the excellent management team led by Garry Smith," says Mr Brown.

IN BRIEF

* Auckland DHB operates New Zealand's largest public hospital. In addition, 24% of the total revenue is associated with non-hospital services, with over 1,000 contracts made up with PHOs, pharmaceuticals, laboratory testing, and residential services for older people and people with mental illness. The ADHB's income was $1.4 billion for the 2006-07 year.

ADHB hospital services

* Almost two million patient contacts annually * Provide tertiary services for the northern region and specialist services for all New Zealand (eg organ transplant, paediatric intensive care unit, National Forensic Pathology Service) * Around 50% to 55% of clinical work undertaken at Auckland DHB is for non-Auckland populations

* The largest trainer of doctors in the country * Employed almost 7,400 staff; over 1,000 medical staff and approx 3,000 nurses * Has over 500 active research projects which support DHB's objectives, underpin our training systems, build and strengthen workforce skills and encourage collaborative partnerships * Treated approximately 54,400 people who stayed in hospital more than one night (2.3% more than the previous year)

* Treated approximately 37,200 people who stayed in the hospital for less than a full day (12.5% more than the previous year) * Increased the amount of elective surgery done for the ADHB population by 12% * Cared for over 2,300 'patient months' of people on in-centre haemodialysis (up 7% on the previous year)

* Saw 51,500 people in its adult Emergency Department (up 1.3% on previous year) * Saw 28,900 children in the Starship Emergency Department (up 2.6% on the previous year) * Looked after 42,400 people with outpatient appointments for ophthalmology (eyes) - up 16.7% on the previous year

* Celebrated the 100th lung transplant in November 2006 * Saw 8% more adult patients then previous year and reduced their stay in hospital from 3.5 to 3.4 days * Met the elective services performance indicators for adults and children

* Opened a new Cardiothoracic and Vascular HDU * Spent $61 million on drugs for patients in hospital and a further $93 million on drugs for patients in the community

In the community and hospital environment

* Achieved the MoH target of 95% of children fully immunised by age two years.

* Initiated the snug homes project and further developed family violence prevention work.

* Undertook the "Listening to Children" project providing children's input into how health services for them are run which is believed to be the first project of its type in New Zealand

* Developed the Health of Older People health Improvement plan (Healthy Aging 2020) and established a Quality Committee and other quality initiatives

* Establishing three new community Green Prescription programmes (under Healthy Eating, Healthy Action) for Maori, Pacific and South Asian peoples

* Won a Te Wiki o Te Reo award (recognising Auckland DHB's commitment to te reo as official language in Aotearoa)

* Kept Allied Health positions fully or near-fully staffed at a period of ongoing challenge to maintain Allied Health staffing levels. ADHB Allied Health refers to professions allied to medicine such as physiotherapists, speech language therapists, pharmacists, psychologists, audiologists etc, but not including nurses.

* Held the third Women's and Children's Therapy conference, and the first Women's and Children's Health Social Work conference

* 16 new sustainable mental health services purchased / established in the Auckland DHB provider for 2007 / 08 as well as 11 service development projects

* Implemented the Acute Home Based Treatment Service in each Community Mental Health Centre enabling intensive support at home for clients who are acutely unwell preventing acute admissions and being positively received by clients and families

* Piloted a Mental Health Community Acute Service at night - a crisis nurse work night shift (as opposed to a limited on call service)

* Introduced a Maori Practitioner competency framework for mental health

* In Information Services seen significant progress in the development our Business Intelligence capability (data warehouse, reporting & management information portal)

* Achieved successful implementation of roll based IT training for clinicians which has improved effectiveness of training and appropriate use of IT

* Completed a successful internal training programme to boost clinical coding workforce

* Rolled-out information services Predict version 2 to GPs in the Auckland region to support cardiovascular risks assessments

* Achieved an improvement in collection of revenue from non-residents who are not eligible for publicly funded healthcare.

* Started demolition of redundant buildings, housed staff in refurbished ex-hospitals sites, cleaned up sites making them more welcoming places, started the building of the new Green Lane crèche

ENDS

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