Partnering across our health system in Canterbury
Canterbury people are receiving better health care, thanks to an enduring partnership between Pegasus Health, the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) and other Canterbury health service providers who are part of the Canterbury Clinical Network (CCN).
As a partner in the Canterbury Health System, Pegasus Health is continuing to work with CDHB on a range of local initiatives, which last year contributed to almost 30,000 people being able to receive treatment and care for acute medical conditions in their own home, rather than in hospital.
CCN Programme Director Kim Sinclair-Morris says Pegasus Health makes a strong contribution to the CCN at a leadership, clinical and operational level.
As a result of the partnerships, Canterbury people are increasingly taking greater responsibility for their own health and accessing care in the community closer to their homes. This has enabled shorter waits for care, higher rates of elective services and reduced pressure on hospitals. A range of conditions that were once treated purely or mainly in hospital are now provided in general practice and older people are staying in their own homes for longer.
Pegasus Health CEO Vince Barry says highlights of Pegasus’ involvement with the CCN, in the last year, have included continued progress in integrating and coordinating mental health services, the Population Health Plan for Primary Care in Canterbury; supporting the development of an improved funding formula for rural practices; and assisting progress towards an Integrated Family Health Service for Kaikoura.
Mental Health
The Mental Health Leadership Workstream is working to make the experience of accessing mental health services better for people, their families and whanau. This involves improving coordination and integration between health services and other social service agencies. One way we’re doing this is by assisting health professionals to better support children and youth to have improved mental health and wellbeing. A focus area is developing a series of mental health patient pathways specifically for children and youth. Patient pathways are a set of guidelines that health professionals formally agree are the best methods for caring for patients. In Canterbury, these pathways are stored on a portal called HealthPathways, which health professionals use to guide them in providing the best possible care for their patients.
Population Health Plan for Primary Care
A working group supported by CCN has reviewed population health activities across the region with the three Canterbury PHOs and Community and Public Health (Canterbury District Health Board). The group has been investigating services that improve accessibility of primary care and health promotion efforts required at a population level and the ways general practice can be funded to deliver them. From this, a three year strategy is being developed to support people to take greater responsibility for their own health and to stay well - for example, supported quit attempts, improving physical activity and nutrition.
Kaikoura Integrated Family Health Service
A team of health professionals will shortly move into Kaikoura’s new Integrated Family Health Centre, following three years of work on developing an integrated model of care that will transform health services for the district. The work has been led by local people, with support from the CCN; including Pegasus Health and the Canterbury DHB. Work is continuing on developing comprehensive and integrated health services and health infrastructure that will work best for the people of Kaikoura.
Subsidies for rural practices
A new funding formula for Canterbury’s rural practices was agreed and implemented near the end of the 2014/15 financial year.
This was developed in response to the Ministry of Health’s requirement for Rural Funding Service Level Alliances (SLA) to recommend the allocation of rural subsidy funding to rural general practices.
The rural funding subsidises the costs of providing access to urgent after hours services and supports the sustainability of these services for rural general practice. For the new funding formula to be accepted at least 75 per cent of rural general practices, accounting for 75 per cent of the enrolled population, needed to agree to it.
The Rural Funding SLA, including membership from rural general practices, CDHB, Pegasus Health, and the Rural Canterbury PHO led a transparent process to develop and refine the model, consulting with rural general practitioners and ensuring that rural general practice would receive appropriate funding to sustain high quality primary care.
Other initiatives
Other collaborative work between Pegasus Health and the CDHB in 2014/15 has included the Canterbury Patient Portal, which is expected to be used by half of all Canterbury general practices by mid 2016, and the Healthy Homes programme which has resulted in more than 1300 homes being made warmer and drier between 2011 and the end of 2014. We are also continuing work with the CDHB to create a ‘safe zone’ that enables data to be shared at different levels of detail depending on that need. This collaboration, called HealthSafe, means we can safely and freely share appropriate information to not only deliver high quality care, but to allow for planning for future health needs.
