Waitemata DHB Elective Surgery Pilot Wins Award
Only days before Waitemata DHB’s new $39 million Elective Surgery Centre (ESC) opens, the pilot programme it stemmed
from has won a Public Sector Excellence Award.
The clinician-led, incentive-based service model for hip and knee surgery (Waitemata District Health Board Orthopaedic
Arthroplasty Pilot Programme) has been awarded a Highly Commended recognition by the 2013 IPANZ Gen-i judges.
The award was presented to Dr John Cullen and Delwyn Armstrong representing the Waitemata District Health Board at the
TSB Arena in Wellington earlier this month.
According to the IPANZ website, the awards “showcase and highlight the significant contribution of the wider public
sector to meeting the needs of New Zealand and New Zealanders. They recognise and promote excellent in terms of vision,
innovation and the achievement of results, and encourage continuous improvement in services to New Zealanders”.
Congratulating the winners, Head of State Services and State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie described the winners as
“outstanding examples of the transformational change that is underway in the public sector.”
The Waitemata DHB’s joint arthroplasty pilot programme for non-urgent elective surgery began at Waitakere Hospital in
2010. Incentive based and clinically led, the pilot aimed to “increase productivity, reduce costs and increase quality
for patients”1
“When you’ve got everyone working toward the same common goal and incentive and drive, it makes it a good place to work
for nursing staff and patients,” said Dr Bill Farrington, who with Dr Ali Bayan was one of the two surgeons who
initiated the pilot programme. “As well as making the process more efficient and cost effective, it’s had a lot of other
positive spin offs. For example the number of sick days with nurses went down because they were happy in their work.”
The Waitakere Pilot Programme achieved very good results including increased productivity (greater than 33%), decreased
average length of stay (40% reduction), decreased operating time, reduced costs ($1,886 per hip and $2,597 per knee) and
high levels of staff and patient satisfaction. In August 2011 the Ministry of Health approved a business case to develop
a new $39 million Elective Surgery Centre on the North Shore Hospital site. Construction kicked off in February 2012,
the building was completed at the end of May 2013, commissioning has now been completed and the facility will receive
its first patient on Monday July 15.
The Elective Surgery Centre will be formally opened by the Minister of Health Tony Ryall on Thursday July 11.
ENDS