CDHB continues to deliver and improve on health targets

DATE: August 30, 2012
SUBJECT: CDHB continues to deliver and improve on health targets

Canterbury District Health Board continues to improve on the Government’s health targets – showing its commitment to ensure Cantabrians access the right health services in the right place at the right time.

David Meates, CDHB Chief Executive, says the earthquakes have caused significant disruptions to the Canterbury Health System and fast tracked the adoption of new ways of working that focus on keeping people well and out of hospital and receiving services in the community, often in their own home.

“Efficient, well-functioning primary care and community services linked in with hospital services play an important role in CDHB’s ability to achieve the Government’s health targets,” Mr Meates says.

“The Canterbury Health System’s performance is remarkable, considering the ongoing disruptions over the last two years and working in facilities that look like construction sites because of ongoing quake repairs,” Mr Meates says.

Some of this can be attributed to Canterbury’s Acute Demand Management Service, which has managed 19,636 urgent care episodes in the community during the past year (July 2011 – June 2012), he says.

“The success of this approach is evident in that the number of people presenting in Canterbury emergency departments has dropped and less activity in our hospital is acute or unplanned,” Mr Meates says.

“Canterbury’s standardised acute medical admission rate is the lowest of any large DHB in the country and well below the national average. Managing acute demand is vital to easing the load on our hospitals, which lost capacity in the earthquake, and helps achieve the ED Health Target.”

Canterbury has met the target for the sixth consecutive quarter, with 96 percent of people admitted or discharged within six hours, he says.

“Less acute activity is also a big help towards achieving our Electives Health Target. I am particularly proud of our achievement of 102 percent, delivering 16,494 elective surgical discharges in the 2011-2012 financial year. This has been a remarkable effort by the clinical teams that has been achieved in very trying and challenging circumstances and has also involved utilising private theatre capacity.”

Mr Meates says a focus on clinical leadership, training and monitoring has been reflected in the increased performance against the Hospitalised Smokers Health Target, with 90 percent of hospitalised smokers receiving help and advice to quit.

“Helping hospitalised smokers to quit is definitely a priority and we are on our way to meeting the national target of 95 percent,” Mr Meates says.

Meanwhile, Mr Meates applauds the efforts that have gone into the Increased Immunisation Target with 91 percent of all two-year-olds immunised in the fourth quarter, representing a return to the pre-quake uptake of 92 percent for the full year.

Work is continuing on achieving primary care targets on advising smokers to quit and performing heart health checks.

Canterbury continues to perform strongly in the Cancer Radiation Therapy Health Target for the fifth consecutive quarter, with 100 percent of patients beginning radiation therapy treatment within four weeks of their specialist assessment for the fifth consecutive quarter.

To view the latest Health Target Results:
http://www.cdhb.govt.nz/documents/healthtargets/ht_qtr4_2011_2012_canterbury.pdf

FAQs:
http://www.cdhb.govt.nz/documents/healthtargets/faqs_for_quarter_four_2011_12_health_target_results.pdf

ENDS

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