Excellent result for West Coast meeting health targets

28 February 2012

Excellent result for West Coast meeting national health targets

West Coast DHB performance against Government health targets for Quarter 2 of the 2011/12 year is very pleasing says Chief Executive David Meates.

Six Government health targets are published quarterly to improve the performance of health services and provide a focus for action for DHBs.

The six targets measured across all DHBs are Shorter stays in Emergency Departments; Improved access to Elective Surgery; Shorter waits for Cancer Treatment; Increased Immunisation; Better help for Smokers to Quit and Better Diabetes and Cardiovascular Services.

The West Coast continues to lead the country’s 20 DHBs with its performance in the Shorter stays in Emergency Departments target.

David Meates says, “This target measures access to urgent care. It relies not only on patients being seen quickly in the Emergency Department, but also the way in which the Emergency Department connects with the whole West Coast health system. Our continued excellent performance in this target relies upon the whole health system working together to provide as good a patient experience as possible.”

“Our strong performance with regard to Improved Access to Elective Surgery indicates that we are currently ahead of elective surgery discharges for the year to date.”

All DHBs met the four-week target for Shorter waits for Cancer Treatment. Radiation treatment for cancer patients is normally carried out for West Coast patients in Christchurch.

The DHB performance in the Increased Immunisation target appears to be disappointing and it significant lower than the national target. Further analysis of West Coast figures indicates that of 108 eligible 2 year olds 85 have been fully immunised, 20 have opted off or decline immunisation leaving only 3 eligible children yet to receive all their immunisations. Those children have been referred to our Outreach Immunisation Service. In addition the DHB is contacting those parents who have opted off or declined immunisation for their children to ask whether their choice may have changed.

“The significant effort put into determining the smoking status of DHB patients and offering them assistance to quit is showing benefits with a significant rise from 67% to 86% over the previous quarter. The efforts of our DHB staff with the assistance of our Smokefree coordinators have made a real impact on ensuring that wherever possible patients who are admitted to hospital have their smoking status checked and assistance to quit is provided if appropriate.”

The Better Diabetes and Cardiovascular Services target continues to improve reflecting the good work being carried out, particularly in general practices, getting eligible adults to have a cardiovascular risk assessment and diabetic patients to have their free annual reviews and have their condition well managed.

“This quarter’s results reflect an ongoing commitment by staff to provide West Coasters with the best possible health service,” says David Meates.

More specific information on each of the health targets can be found on the Ministry of Health’s website at http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/indexmh/healthtargets-reporting

ENDS

HT_2ndQtr_17WestCoastDHB_Web.pdf

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