Emergency Department Performance Soars at Waitemata DHB

MEDIA RELEASE
30 August 2011

Emergency Department Performance Soars at Waitemata DHB

Waitemata District Health Board has seen a dramatic improvement in the performance of its emergency departments over the last quarter.

In addition, monitoring has shown that Waitemata DHB equalled or improved on its performance in the previous three months in five of the six health target areas.

CEO Dr Dale Bramley says the results show a significant upwards trend: “Our figures show that Waitemata DHB has made the biggest gains of any DHB in the country over the last two years in its emergency department performance. This is a fantastic result and excellent news for the Waitemata population.”

Monitoring for July shows that the DHB is now exceeding the 95% emergency department target.

“Compared with the 61% delivered in June 2009, this is a remarkable achievement – especially given that our new emergency department at North Shore Hospital has not been fully completed, and that we’ve also started round-the-clock emergency care at Waitakere Hospital over that period,” added Dr Bramley.

Waitemata DHB results for each health target area for Q4 2010/11 are as follows (with national or district annual plan targets in parentheses):

• Shorter Stays in Emergency Departments – 94% (target: 95%)
• Improved Access to Elective Surgery – 103% (target: 13,434 discharges)
• Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment – 100% (target: 100% < 4 weeks)
• Increased Immunisation – 92% (target: 90% by July 2011)
• Better Help for Smokers to Quit – 86% (target: 90% by July 2011)
• Better Diabetes & Cardiovascular Services – 72% (DAP target: 69%)

In the two areas where Waitemata DHB did not achieve the health targets – Shorter Stays in Emergency Departments and Better Help for Smokers to Quit – current real-time monitoring shows that the organisation has met these targets.

For the month of July, Waitemata DHB achieved 95% for Shorter Stays in EDs (meeting the national target), and reached 97% in Better Help for Smokers to Quit (exceeding the national target of 90%).

“The continued improvements in performance across each of these areas reflects the commitment Waitemata DHB has made to strive for excellence in all the health services we provide to the people in our district,” says Dr Bramley. “We want to be recognised as one of the best-performing DHBs in the country.”

Health targets are initiated by the Ministry of Health as a set of national performance measures designed to improve health services across New Zealand. Introduced to the New Zealand health system in 2007/08, health targets are reviewed annually to determine trends, gaps and success factors – and to ensure they align with government health priorities.

Each of the six targets reflects a priority health area for the government. These indicators support the MoH and DHBs to focus on improving the national and regional health sector performance. The MoH and the DHBs are collectively responsible for these health targets.

Individual DHBs also negotiate local health targets with the MoH, taking into consideration the specific health needs of their communities.

Ranking of DHBs’ performance is part of the MoH’s quarterly health reporting process. National and regional health target results will be publicly available in September 2011 on the MoH website at http://www.moh.govt.nz.

ENDS

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