TDH consistently improving Health Target performance

26 May 2011

Tairawhiti District Health has welcomed today’s release of its performance against the six national Health Targets.

Chief Executive Jim Green says TDH has improved performance across most areas and is heading towards the end of the year with confidence in meeting the targets.

Three targets focus on hospital performance:

• Shorter stays in Emergency Departments
• Improved access to Elective Surgery, and
• Shorter waits for Cancer Treatment Radiotherapy.

The other three targets focus on preventive measures:

• Increased Immunisation
• Better Help for Smokers to Quit, and
• Better Diabetes and Cardiovascular Services.

Tairawhiti District Health ranked eighth DHB in the country for Shorter Stays in Emergency Departments at 95%. The ED continues to meet this target which is a good indicator of how all staff are working across the hospital to ensure people get the care they require in a timely fashion.

While performance for Improved Access to Elective Surgery remained static at 97% completion, planning is fully in place to achieve 100% by the end of June.

TDH was placed first with 15 other DHBs for Shorter Waits for Cancer Treatment.  This is very encouraging given this is the first quarter the new four week target has been in place.

TDH staff have dramatically improved results for Better Help for Smokers to Quit placing 9th at 78% which showed an increase of 18% on last quarter.  Results since that time have shown even more improvement owing to staff determination to see smokers get the benefit of another opportunity to be assisted to quit smoking.

Increased Immunisation placed 17th on 85%.  This was an improvement on the last quarter result and is an indication of the work our Tairawhiti Immunisation Coordinatio group and the people out in the community providing the immunisations are doing to make sure every child in Tairawhiti has the benefits immunisation brings.

However performance on Better Diabetes and Cardiovascular Services has not improved and Tairawhiti placed 19th on 69%.  Closer work between TDH and our two PHOs in the district working through their networks of GPs and practices is needed to lift this vital measure.

TDH Board Chair Mr David Scott said that the results were a good improvement giving us an overall percentage of 87.2%.  This performance is very encouraging for people within the health workforce in Tairawhiti.  To see gains of this nature with all that they mean for the health of our community is satisfying for the Board of TDH.  We look forward to ending the year with further improvements in achieving these important areas of focus for health services.