Working Towards Achievement of the Health Targets

Monday 23 November 2009

Working Towards Achievement of the Health Targets in the Lakes District

Lakes DHB Chief Executive Cathy Cooney says Lakes DHB is making progress towards meeting the Government’s six health targets.
PLEASE CLICK HERE to see the graph for Lakes DHB's achievement against the health targets.

Cathy Cooney says many in the community will feel reassured to see that everyone needing radiation treatment for cancer across the Lakes district is accessing this within six weeks of their first specialist assessment.

She says the targets information for improved access to elective surgery shows that Lakes DHB has achieved 102 per cent of the target for the quarter.

The Ministry of Health’s table shows on average 82 per cent of people attending the Rotorua Hospital Emergency Department are admitted, discharged or transferred within six hours of arrival. Cathy Cooney says work is steadily progressing to ensure that this figure lifts to the 95 per cent target set by the Minister of Health.

Lakes DHB has achieved 68 per cent on the target for better diabetes and cardiovascular services. This figure represents the average progress towards three target indicators for diabetes and cardiovascular services.

The smoking target is one that the DHB is expecting to make real progress on in the future. Lakes DHB has achieved 21 per cent against the target of 80 per cent of hospitalised smokers to be provided with advice and help to quit, by July 2010. The graph represents only data from September, and it is expected to have a better recording of data in the next quarter.

Increasing Immunisation represents a considerable challenge for Lakes DHB, in conjunction with the two primary care organisations in the Lakes area, Lakes Taupo PHO and Health Rotorua PHO. Lakes DHB rates at the bottom of the DHBs’ ranking in this area. Lakes has achieved 65 per cent against a target requiring 85 per cent of two-year-olds to be fully immunised by July 2010. This target increases by five per cent a year.

Lakes DHB is very concerned about what this result means for the children of the Lakes district and has planning underway for a further campaign to lift immunisation rates, and the DHB is committed to working with GP practices to ensure children are immunised.

Chief Executive Cathy Cooney says that she is looking to the Lakes DHB Clinical Governance and Management Group which includes representation from primary care, to help drive achievement against the targets and acknowledges the significant contribution that all staff make to quality health services, while at the same time fine-tuning processes to achieve increases in productivity.

ENDS

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