Tairawhiti District Health has achieved one of its best-ever health target results, says chief executive Jim Green.
The Minister of Health’s six health targets show a lift in DHB performance for the third quarter of the 2012/13 financial year, with TDH achieving four out of six of the government’s targets.
For the first time, for the Better help for smokers to quit target, the Ministry of Health ranked DHBs against the primary care target (that 90 percent of patients who smoke and are seen by a GP are offered brief advice and support to quit smoking).
In Tairawhiti the DHB achieved 47 percent for the primary care target (up from 42 last quarter) and 91 percent for the hospital target (down from 93 percent last quarter).
“It’s good to know we’re continuing strong progress at hospital level, and that our community-based health partners are too,” said Mr Green.
“We’ve worked so hard at Gisborne Hospital to get closer to the hospital target of 95 percent. We’re talking about just a few patients not being asked about whether they smoke … and we are tantalisingly close at 91 percent.”
Mr Green said it was heartening to see TDH’s primary care partners working the same way in community settings to ensure smokers were offered advice and support to quit.
“The single biggest thing we can do to improve the health of our Tairawhiti population is to help all our smokers give up the habit. It’s World Smokefree Day tomorrow and a lot of energy and resources have gone into promotion of the smoke-free message and to making sure people understand there is help and support when they take the first step by deciding: ‘I don’t want to smoke anymore’.”
Strong progress was also achieved for the More heart and diabetes checks target, said Mr Green.
“While we’re not quite at the target of 75% of people in the eligible population having their cardiovascular risk assessed by a GP, we have achieved 63 percent this quarter, up from 59 percent last quarter. This is another target focussed on the community health providers and it’s encouraging to see such steady improvement.”
Nationally, the More heart and diabetes checks target reached 58.9 percent this quarter, an improvement of 3.6 percent compared with quarter two.
“Although no DHBs have yet met the target of 75 percent, 13 are achieving 60 percent or more…and TDH is one of those.”
TDH is also one of 15 DHBs to achieve the Improved access to elective surgeries target. The national Improved access to elective surgery target has been achieved, with 116,171 elective surgical discharges provided, against a target of 109,293 discharges. This is 6878 (6 percent) more than planned. In Tairawhiti, quarter three performance was 102 percent.
See also: Tairawhiti District health Board results
Nationally, four health targets have been met this quarter:
- Improved access to elective surgery target (106.3 percent)
- Shorter waits for cancer treatment (99.9 percent)
- Increased immunisation (88.9 percent)
- Better help for smokers to quit hospital target (94.8 percent).
All other national Health Target results have improved compared with quarter two 2012/13.
ENDS
For more information:
Tairawhiti District health quarter three health target results (PDF)
Kathy McVey, Communications Manager
06 869-0500 or 021 223-7094