Patients to have more choice in clinic dates, times

23/03/2011 | Outpatient appointments

Patients attending outpatient clinics at MidCentral Health will soon be given options around the time of appointments, rather than being told when to turn up.

Along with this, MidCentral Health will be implementing a redesigned elective surgery pre-admission assessment process. This will see a more robust assessment of patient’s fitness for surgery which will  pick up any other condition they may have that would otherwise have stopped them having surgery, like cardiac or respiratory conditions.

These projects are part of two National Health Board-funded projects MidCentral Health has received about $290,000 in funding to carry out them out. They are part of a national Elective Services Productivity and Workforce Programme.

Project plans have been developed for both projects with deliverables, and agreed by the Ministry of Health, with set timeframes that key MidCentral Health staff have been working toward. Patient-focused bookings will be in place by July 2011 and the surgical pre-admission assessment process redesign will be completed by the end of 2012.
Both projects will enable patients to be more involved in the planning of their journey.

Under the new system patients will be given choices from a number of options with days and times their clinics are scheduled, to better suit the patient and give them time to plan any arrangements –for example, time off work, childcare, and transport, and to better suit their lifestyles.
Service Manager, Chris Simpson said: “The surgery pre-admission assessment process redesign project will enable patients at risk to be identified earlier and more efficiently, therefore shortening the wait for surgery and more effectively planning post-operative care.”

MidCentral Health, along with other DHBs, are currently required to report to the Ministry of Health quarterly on theatre use. These projects will help improve results in meeting the Ministry’s expectations.

The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the pre-assessment process redesign project are based on the national “The Productive Operating Theatre” (TPOT) initiative. This initiative, based on the British model, is designed to produce a long-term cultural change in the performance of operating theatres in areas such as patient outcomes and experience and safety and reliability of care.
The project will also take the opportunity to implement the full World Health Organisation (WHO) safe surgery checklist, parts of which are already done by MidCentral Health.

Contact: Communications Unit (06) 350-8945