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Health Targets End of year results 2009/2010back to Health Targets “A good effort but more needs to happen”|
 | These health targets are the set of things on which Government judges DHB performance more than any other. Below are the results at the end of the financial year, the point by which the Minister required DHBs to achieve their targets. We clearly progressed in all areas and I thank DHB staff and primary care for their efforts. Please maintain those and in the indicators where we fell short please do what you can to make a difference. I have noted previously that if we are not actively going forward then we are going backward in relative terms. A good effort but more needs to happen. I’ve mentioned medical staff and we do need your input and attention to the health targets. They are here to stay and all of us need to focus on them.
- Craig Climo, Chief Executive, Waikato DHB | |
Media releaseShorter stays in Emergency Departments
The target is 95 percent of patients will be admitted, discharged,
or transferred from an Emergency Department (ED) within six hours.
The target is a measure of the efficiency of flow of acute (urgent) patients through public hospitals, and home again. To achieve this target with good, sustainable improvements is expected to take up to two years for many hospitals. Craig Climo:
Performance on this target concerns me than any other. We progressed relatively well but are still significantly lower than other big DHBs that face the same issues we do - if they can do it so can we. The solutions are always multifaceted but the single biggest gain will come through recognition throughout Waikato and Thames hospitals that it is a hospital wide issue - not an ED problem. This is particularly so in Waikato Hospital. It needs medical staff to be attentive to issues in ED and not just their traditional focus elsewhere in the hospital.
Wards need to free up beds sooner and readily receive patients.
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Improved access to elective surgery|
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The target is an increase in the volume of elective surgery by an average of 4000 discharges
per year
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*DHBs planned to deliver 131,718 discharges and have delivered 6658 discharges more. This is an increase of 8562 discharges above 2008/09.
Craig Climo:We saw significant year on year increases. This is a major success and my thanks go to all involved in achieving it. As well as extra resources, it has required change in the way in which we do things and hard work in changing the processes. Our success in this indicator from now on will be in achieving the 100 per cent target, not significantly exceeding it.
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Increased Immunisation|
The national immunisation target is for 85 percent of two-year olds* to be fully immunised by July 2010; 90 percent by July 2011; and 95 percent by July 2012.
*This result includes children who turned two years between April and June 2010 and who were fully immunised at that stage.
Craig Climo:We not only exceeded our own target of 81 per cent but passed the national target of 85 per cent. Particularly pleasing is that the past large gap in rates between Maori and non-Maori is virtually eliminated. This is a great effort after some years of largely static immunisation rates. The result is due to the efforts of primary care and a range of additional services, with a significant contribution from DHB provider-arm teams including National Immunisation Register, the mobile immunisation service and hospital based opportunistic immunisation. This target increases to 90 per cent from 2010/11 so we’ll need to see these good efforts continuing. | 
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Media release: A sneak peak at immunisation rates for Maori and Pacific childrenShorter waits for cancer treatment
|  The target is everyone needing radiation treatment will have this within six weeks of their first specialist assessment by the end of July 2010 and within four weeks by December 2010. Six regional oncology centres provide radiation oncology services. These centres are in Auckland, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Craig Climo:The second of our two major success stories to date. The target is six weeks but radiotherapy has for months been 100 per cent achieving at four weeks, which will be the new national target from January 2011. Well done to the team there.
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Better help for smokers to quit
 The target is that 80 percent of hospitalised smokers will be provided with advice and help to quit by July 2010; 90 percent by July 2011; and 95 percent by July 2012. The data covers patients presenting to Emergency Departments, day stay and other hospital based interventions. Craig Climo:To smoke or not is the single biggest health lifestyle choice that people will make and health professionals are in a special position to influence that. Hospitals have the opportunity of helping to stem the burden of chronic illness that they face. This one indicator does not require complicated process issues. Performance here is a direct function of whether or not health professionals ask patients if they smoke and if they do smoke, to offer intervention and record it. Whilst we have seen a good lift in performance off a low base, there is a lot more to do, particularly by our medical staff.
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Better diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) services|
|  This graph represents the average progress made by a DHB towards three target indicators: (a) an increased percent of the eligible adult population will have had their cardiovascular disease risk assessed in the last five years; (b) an increased percent of people with diabetes will attend free annual checks; (c) an increased percent of people with diabetes will have satisfactory or better diabetes management.
Craig Climo:
Improvement has been slow but I am pleased with progress and believe it will continue to steadily improve. We are seeing a significant increase in the number of people being with diabetes having annual reviews. This is due to more effort in this area. However, it will perversely for a time see an overall reduction in how well we manage the population’s diabetes on average. Primary care mostly influences this indicator, which is a composite of several measures. My thanks go to them.
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