Best of Health Awards 2008
Waikato District Health Board’s Best of Health Awards is a biennial event developed in 2003 to recognise and reward excellence and innovation in health initiatives around the Waikato region.
The 2008 ceremony, held Friday 7 November, is the fourth awards ceremony and after applications were sought from all health providers within the Waikato DHB area 28 were received and 15 shortlisted to be finalists.
The awards are split into three categories – innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement – with the third category split into three sub categories and an overall winner chosen from the three sub category winners:
- Continuous improvement – non-clinical support improvement
- Continuous improvement – clinical practice improvement
- Continuous improvement – clinical service delivery improvement
Michele A'Court was the MC for the evening and Rotorua band 'Count Me In' got everyone up and dancing after dinner.
Congratulations to the finalists and winners. Each took away a trophy and cash grant to invest into their award-winning project or support a new initiative.
Innovation
Double Balloon Enteroscopy - Health Waikato, Waikato DHB
Prize of $5000, trophy and certificate
This pioneering new procedure at Waikato Hospital is reducing the need for surgery, cutting the waiting time for diagnosis and reducing the length of time a patient spends in hospital.
A double-balloon enteroscopy enables doctors to view and take samples of a patient's small bowel, allowing them to diagnose cancers and other causes of intestinal bleeding without performing invasive surgery.
The procedure improves the quality of life for patients by reducing the length of time they stay in hospital. Often the patient can walk in and out of hospital on the same day of the procedure.
It is also safer for the patient as it eliminates the need for surgery, and means no blood transfusions are required.
The relative ease of the procedure means it is much cheaper than performing surgery. Seventy per cent of patients receive a diagnosis allowing them to get treatment and for the remaining 30 per cent, the procedure can show that the patient does not have disease of the small bowel thus avoiding the need for more invasive surgery in order to make a diagnosis.
Waikato Hospital is the first and only hospital in New Zealand to undertake the double-balloon enteroscopy and around 60 people have undergone the procedure, including many patients from outside the Waikato region.
Photo: Double Balloon Enteroscopy Team: From left, Dr Tony Smith, Julia Cleaver, Lynne Irving, Carolyn Gibbs, Dr Frank Weilert, Bronwyn Scully and Dr Jim Brooker
Collaboration
Hands Up for Health - Population Health Service, Health Waikato, Waikato DHB
Prize of $5000, trophy and certificate
Sending Waikato children home from school with a special handout helped them understand the importance of washing and drying their hands.
The Hands up for Health campaign provided children with a large double-sided hand, two stickers and a fridge magnet to help reinforce the hand hygiene message.
The project team developed hand hygiene resources and public health nurses delivered an education package to primary and intermediate schools, as well as registered early childhood centres within the Waikato DHB region.
The campaign also indirectly targeted the wider community through the younger children who were enthusiastic messengers to family and whānau.
Interactive ‘glo germ’ experiments were used to help children understand that invisible germs are on their hands and that good hand hygiene can remove these germs.
The Ministry of Health funded the programme and it ran from July to November 2006. More than 50,000 households received the hand out.
The Hands up for Health campaign is currently in a maintenance phase, targeting pre-schoolers’ and new entrant students.
Photo: Hands up for Health Team: From left, Judy Barnett, Barbara Garbutt, Lindsay Lowe, Louise Wild and Gytha Lancaster
Continuous improvement – non-clinical support improvement
Webhealth Waikato Kiosk Project - Linkage Trust
Prize of $1000, trophy and certificate
Webhealth is a website that provides free information about health and social services available in a particular field or area.
The website, established in 2004, shows that people have the strengths and abilities to find their own solutions to issues in their lives when given access to the best possible information.
Although NZ has one of the highest internet access statistics in the world, lower socio-economic areas still find it difficult to afford this and experience indicates that these areas are often in the greatest need of the information available on the Webhealth website.
Establishment of the Webhealth Kiosk Project alleviated this problem.
The project has seen 21 interactive touch screen kiosks introduced into various community services throughout the greater Waikato, which has enabled community services to better support their clients by providing access to a database of services and readily available information.
This has enabled the public to have a better understanding of the options available to them.
With a simple design and easy to understand language, Webhealth information meets the needs of the wider community and forms a bridge between non-clinical and clinical information and services.
Placing these kiosks in friendly and safe venues has enabled people to feel more comfortable about initiating the first step in their recovery process.
Photo: Webhealth Waikato Team: From left, Hilda Botha, Richard Jeffcoat, Sarah Edmonds and Graham Potter
Continuous improvement – clinical practice improvement
Ward based sedation for dressings changes and wound debridements
in burns patients at Waikato Hospital – Health Waikato, Waikato DHB
Prize of $1000, trophy and certificate
Serious burn wounds require daily debridement and dressing changes to reduce the risk of infection and allow surgeons to assess and plan treatment.
This can be an excruciatingly painful experience and has been a long-standing challenge for health professionals involved in burns care.
Before the introduction of the ward based sedation project, Waikato Hospital burn patients either endured these painful procedures on their ward or were scheduled for general anaesthesia in an acute operating theatre – requiring a prolonged period of starvation that effectively compromised healing and immunity for these patients as well as being an additional burden on an already over stretched acute operating service.
In June 2007, Waikato Hospital’s acute pain service introduced the innovative, safe and effective regimen that enhanced the options available for these patients and safe analgesia and sedation is now provided on their ward.
Patients control the amount of drugs they get depending on how much pain they are in, allowing experienced nurses to change dressings and clean wounds more effectively and in much less time than previously taken.
In addition, while the patients are sedated and comfortable, physiotherapists and occupational therapists can treat the patients.
This project has successfully improved burn patients’ experience at Waikato Hospital and reduced demands on the acute operating theatres.
Photo: Ward based Sedation Team: From left, Dean Blake, Sheena Reid, Bronwyn Pester, Chris Jephcott, David Kibblewhite, and Denise Cranston (Braemar Hospital)
Continuous improvement – clinical service delivery improvement
General practice initiated community management of cellulitis – Waikato DHB
Prize of $1000, trophy and certificate
Cellulitis is a bacterial infection of the skin and underlying tissue that can require intravenous therapy.
Since December 2006, the General Practice Initiated Community Management of Cellulitis programme has enabled Waikato general practice teams to deliver therapy to cellulitis patients. Previously treatment was only accessible from a hospital Emergency Department because the antibiotic was not available to general practitioners.
Waikato Hospital pharmacy now provides general practices with kits containing medication for a three-day treatment course and trained practice nurses intravenous care.
Management of most patients is within primary care as the general practice administers the initial dose with the option of a district nurse giving the two remaining doses.
During the 17-month pilot, 1276 patients were treated; resulting in 29.6 per cent less GP referred cellulitis presentations to the Emergency Department than predicted.
The pilot standardised management of cellulitis in line with recognised best practice and provided information about the community’s level of need.
The biggest benefit was offering patients a choice, enabling the delivery of treatment in the community at greater convenience to the patient, and protecting the secondary service for those who are in greater need for that level of care.
Waikato DHB funds the service and it is part of normal practice now.
Photo: Cellulitis Team: From left, Jan Goddard, Linda Rademaker and Kevin Thorburn (Pacific Surgical Ltd)
Continuous improvement overall winners:
Prize of $4000 each, trophy and certificate
- Ward based sedation for dressings changes and wound debridements in burns patients at Waikato Hospital – Health Waikato, Waikato DHB
- General practice initiated community management of cellulitis – Waikato DHB
Category finalists:
Innovation
- Bench top endovascular simulator
- Double balloon enteroscopy – A new frontier
- Waikato Community Pharmacy Group free Emergency Contraceptive Pill for under 25 year olds
Collaboration
- Hands up for health
- Hepatitis C management in the prison setting – a shared care model
- Secure electronic referral receipt pilot project
Continuous improvement – non-clinical support improvement
- Media streaming at Waikato District Health Board
- Waikato District Health Board Website
- Webhealth Waikato Kiosk Project
Continuous improvement – clinical practice improvement
- SBARR Co-operative Communication Tool
- Waikato Hospital Trauma Service
- Ward based sedation for dressings changes and wound debridements in burns patients at Waikato Hospital
Continuous improvement – clinical service delivery improvement
- General practice initiated community management of cellulitis
- Midland Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Haematology Service
- Nurse led clinic – Breast cancer care support and assessment clinic
Best of Health Awards 2008 newspaper article
