Canterbury DHB brings home four IPANZ awards

MEDIA RELEASE

July 22, 2015

Canterbury District Health Board brings home four IPANZ awards

Canterbury District Health Board won four award categories at the Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (IPANZ) awards held in Wellington last night, including the prestigious Prime Minister's award.

Chief executive, David Meates, said it was an honour to receive the awards on behalf of the talented teams of people who work so hard every day for Canterbury people. “To win four out of a total of ten awards speaks volumes about the calibre of people we have working in our health system.

“I’m thrilled to see so many aspects of our work being judged as outstanding,” he said.

“The Canterbury vision is of a connected health system, delivered through cross-system alliances and partnerships, with people at the centre of everything we do. Our success together as a whole health system shows we are getting closer to that vision every day, despite the ongoing legacy of the earthquakes and the challenge of ever tighter budgets.”

“The icing on the cake was the Canterbury Clinical Network receiving the Prime Minister’s award for Public Sector excellence. We had some very tough competition from Ministries and other big government organisations, and for the Canterbury Clinical Network to win this award is remarkable, and a fitting tribute to everyone involved.

Canterbury DHB won the following awards:

• The Treasury Award for Excellence in Improving Public Value through Business Transformation - the Canterbury Clinical Network which has led the transformation of health services through their patient-centric, clinically-led alliance approach.

• The State Services Commission and Leadership Development Centre Award for Improving Performance through Leadership Excellence - the Canterbury Health System's '8' programmes, Xcelr8, Collabor8 and Particip8 which develops leaders across the Canterbury Health System was a joint winner with the Department of Internal Affairs.

• The Victoria University of Wellington School of Government Award for Excellence in Public Sector Engagement - the 'Heading to hospital - Plan your trip!' campaign to inform Cantabrians about the closure of onsite parking at Christchurch Hospital, and the establishment of a new Park & Ride scheme.

• The overall award open to all category winners, The Prime Minister's award for Public Sector Excellence - was won by the Canterbury Health System's Canterbury Clinical Network.

“Everyone working in the Canterbury Health System can feel proud of a job well done. Winning these awards provides further independent validation that we are on the right track with the transformational changes in progress.

“A whole of system approach through a more integrated way of working is certainly working for the people of Canterbury,” David Meates said.

ENDS

Note: A high res photograph of the Canterbury Health System team and their awards is available on request.

A list of recent Canterbury Health System highlights

The benefits of supporting people to stay well in the community

• Achieved the lowest ED attendance rate in Australasia

o 30 per cent fewer acute medical admissions than the New Zealand average

o Reduction in the proportion of people over 65 who are attending our ED, from a high of about 27 per cent of our population over 65 attending EDs, now we are down to 22 per cent of our population over 65 attending EDs because they are getting their care without needing an emergency department attendance

• Our falls prevention strategies are contributing to a reduction in harm from falls in the elderly population. In the 2011-2012 year we achieved a 42% reduction in serious harm falls in our hospitals compared to the 2010-2011 year.

Since February 2012 (compared with outcomes expected based on previous trends for over 75s);

o 1083 fewer people with falls presented to ED

o 373 fewer than expected admissions for hip fractures

o This has saved about 27 hospital beds each year

o Compared with previous trends, there are 86 fewer deaths at 180 days post discharge after treatment for a fractured neck of femur (hip)

o The reduction in hospital beds is approximately one ward reduction each year i.e. about $6.8M with a net saving over three years of $18M.

• Supporting people in their own homes means 400 fewer people in residential aged carecompared to 2006, and a 13 month decrease in the average time spent in aged residential care

• Increased access to elective surgery by 43 per cent

• Have not had to increase the number of beds that we need in our hospital, despite a population increase of about 70,000 in the last 6 years

• Our acute admission rates are 30% below national rates. If we admitted at the same rate as the rest of the country there would be 127,000 more people in hospital

• Last year alone over 30,000 people who would previously have been admitted to hospital received treatment and care in the community.

• Despite significant increases in demand for mental health services post-quake, services, including general practice teams have stepped up and met the demand, with an increased range of community-based mental health services.

Key to improving the patient experience and reducing wastage is the provision of reliable, real time information.

• HealthPathways: Developed in Canterbury in 2008, HealthPathways is now spreading rapidly throughout New Zealand and Australia, and is starting to be introduced further afield.

HealthPathways is a clinically designed tool which helps ensure timely, consistent and equitable treatment and access to health care by mapping out a pathway for a patient with a specific condition. This includes when and which diagnostic tests should be done, which medication should be prescribed – and when, and importantly, which patients should be treated in primary care and the type of patient who should be referred to secondary care.

HealthPathways are frequently updated, shortening the lag between new evidence emerging and putting it into practice. It is always up to date and viewed by Canterbury clinicians 1.3 million times each year

• HealthInfo: HealthInfo is an easy-to-use, health reference website specially created by Canterbury health professionals using local knowledge and with the needs of the local community in mind. It contains trusted and reliable information about many conditions and diseases to help people look after their own health.

• eMeds: eMeds is short for the electronic Medicines Management Programme. eMeds is made up of various projects, all focused on improving safety for patients and staff by reducing medication errors.

• HealthOne: Developed so authorised GPs, pharmacists, community nurses and hospital specialists can quickly access the relevant parts of their patients’ health records. It’s giving care professionals across settings access to a more complete picture and case history of a patient allowing better, faster decisions to be made.

• SI PICS (South Island Patient Information Care System)

There are currently seven different patient management systems in use in South Island DHBs. The South Island Patient Information Care System will replace and consolidate a number of those patient management system, streamlining processes such as registration when you’re being admitted to hospital, referrals, waiting list booking and scheduling, reporting and business intelligence, discharge and more. It will support better patient care, improve safety and lead to more consistent care across the region.

• Electronic Request Management System (ERMS):

ERMS is an electronic referral tool developed in Canterbury to improve the way general practices make requests for specialist advice and referred services across both public and private sectors. It handles around 22,600 requests a month at the moment, every one of which facilitates a faster, safer patient experience.

• Online health dashboards are making key issues more visible and able to be managed. The dashboards are also displayed in the new operations centre and are reviewed and issues addressed as part of broader hospital flow and resource management.

• Health professionals are guiding the transformation of our health system through identifying areas where improvements can be made and leading the design of the solutions via our leadership development programmes (Xcelr8, Particip8 and Collabor8)

• Collaboration and alliancing are the way we work, and we have implemented dozens of innovative ideas to make it better for patients.

• The Canterbury Clinical Network is the broadest health alliance in New Zealand with nine partner organisations and whole of system engagement. Since 2009, CCN has developed new service delivery models, funding and contracting mechanisms that are based on principles of high trust, low bureaucracy, openness and transparency.

International acclaim

A report by highly-regarded British health authority, The King’s Fund, about the Canterbury Health System numbers Canterbury as one of only a handful of high-performing health systems in the world.

• “It's one thing to advocate the idea of integrated care but quite another to make it work in practice as Canterbury District Health Board has.” Chris Ham, chief executive of The King’s Fund

• “Canterbury are making real inroads into lack of productivity in the [health] system.”Malcolm Grant, Chairperson, National Health Service.

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