The Best of Health Awards 2012

Project Energize picks up top prize at awards evening

Caption: 2012 Project Energizers

Project Energize has won the 2012 Waikato District Health Board Best of Health Awards tonight.

Project Energize, a collaborative programme run by Sport Waikato and funded by Waikato DHB, has won total prize money of $4500 taking out the overall prize as well as one of the major categories at the awards event.

The Best of Health Awards were first introduced in 2003 to recognise and reward the excellent health initiatives that had taken place across the Waikato.

They were held again in 2004, 2006 and 2008. The aim of the awards is to share valuable health information and showcase best practice.

2012 Best of Health submissions
Project Energize at work
Photos from the 2012 awards

This year, the awards received 36 entries from throughout the Waikato health sector, including entries from primary care, Waikato District Health Board and non-Government organisations (NGOs).

Some 180 guests gathered at the Wintec House Atrium from 6pm today to attend the awards ceremony, MC’d by TV personality Kay Gregory.

The four category prizes up for grabs were:

Innovation – won by Population Health for their project: ‘Opportunities Taken: The need for, and effectiveness of secondary care opportunistic immunisation
Patient outcome – won by Sport Waikato for their entry: Project Energize
Process improvement – won by Waikato Hospital for their project: The Waikato Hospital delivery and capacity planning project; and
Collaboration – won by Midlands Health Network for their project: eReferral best practice generic template roll out to Waikato DHB general practices

A selection of DHB and primary care staff judged each of these, which came with prize money of $1500 each.

The overall prize was worth $3000 and claimed by worthy winner Project Energize.

J Montage

udges’ comments about the Project Energize submission:

“A key government health target is better diabetes and cardiovascular services, reflecting the known high burden of these conditions.

“Both are intimately related to obesity and paradoxically, the need for this target indicates the need for effective population based obesity prevention.

“ Project Energize is an interesting collaborative project involving Sport Waikato, Waikato DHB, the community, and most importantly, children.

“The project has a great outcome for our future, is very innovative and can be rolled our nationally. Project Energize uses children as teachers, which is fantastic.

“This project has a huge preventative impact and is a project that is truly inclusive of the community and is a critical concept for New Zealand.”
It is primary and intermediate school children in the Waikato DHB region who benefit from Project Energize, which aims to improve nutrition and physical activity levels in those age groups, reduce obesity rates and reduce cardiovascular risk factors.

A total of 44,000 primary and intermediate school children are now part of Project Energize through 244 Waikato schools.

Vital to the success of Project Energize are the ‘Energizers’ who work with schools, teachers and parents, giving physical fitness and nutritional advice and helping implement health and fitness programmes.

Research carried out last year by AUT University’s Professor of Nutrition, Elaine Rush, said the change in nutrition and fitness as a result of Project Energize would have significant benefits in the coming decades.

“Within another decade or so these children are going to be parents themselves so if we have achieved changes in attitude to health and fitness, we may achieve real generational change and that is a very exciting prospect.”
Other findings from the 2011 evaluation, which included 5110 6-11-year-olds found:

Obesity rates at 3% less than the national average
Children weighed less and had a lower body mass index than Waikato children of the same age measured in 2004 and 2006
Waist measurements were substantially less than those measured in Waikato children of the same age measured in 2004 and 2006
Ran 20 seconds (13%) faster compared to national data gathered for the same age groups between 2001 and 2007

Gordon Chesterman, who was Waikato DHB’s Community and Public Health Advisory Committee chair at the time Project Energize was granted funding, was delighted to hear of the project’s success tonight, “I feel really pleased that as a board we had the vision and foresight to recognise this project was an essential one for the future of Waikato, and hopefully one day, New Zealand children.

“Project Energize’s success at the 2012 Best of Health Awards is fantastic news and a yet another step in the right direction when it comes to investing in our future.”

This is the second good bit of news for Project Energize in recent months, with the initiative also being included in the European Obesity Prevention Network – one of just 20 community based programmes to be included – and have been invited to New York to attend the network’s two-day seminar.

Waikato DHB’s investment in Project Energize since 2004:

2004/05 $845k
2005/06 $858k
2006/07 $933k
2007/08 $955k
2008/09 $1,167k
2009/10 $1,891k
2010/11 $1,891k
2011/12 $1,907k (budget)

Other Project Energize partners include AUT University, University of Waikato, Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec), Sport and Recreation NZ and the National Health Foundation.

Other projects that received honourable mentions at the awards were:

Community pharmacy anticoagulation management service from Pharmacy 547
The Waihi Project (family violence) from Population Health, Waikato DHB
Waikato virtual lesion clinic from Waikato DHB’s Dermatology Department; and
from Waikato Immunisation Stakeholders Group

The Best of Health Awards 2012

Project Energize picks up top prize at awards evening

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