Referred services management: building towards equity, quality, and better health outcomes

Referred services management: building towards equity, quality, and better health outcomes
Date of publication: October 2002

The Referred Services Advisory Group was established in 2001 to advise the Ministry of Health on how pharmaceuticals and laboratory tests should be funded and managed within the context of the Primary Health Care Strategy.

There has been a concern for some time that the expenditure on pharmaceutical and laboratory services (“referred services”) has not been allocated according to need. There is also increasing evidence of wide variation in referred services expenditure that cannot be fully explained by patient factors or linked to the achievement of health outcomes.

This Advisory Group was asked to consider these issues and suggest an alternative approach, in the context of the New Zealand Health Strategy, population strategies (eg the Health of Older People Strategy), the Primary Health Care Strategy and the development of Primary Health Organisations.

Our terms of reference were as follows:

“The Advisory Group will consider referred services in primary care (prescribing of pharmaceuticals and ordering of laboratory tests) and advise the Ministry of Health on:

suitable ways of funding referred services to meet the needs of a defined population
appropriate incentives for organisations to manage referred services within a predetermined budget
how to develop and support clinical governance around referred services
suitable performance measures
information needs or other tools
any other relevant matters

The Group will operate within the context of the wider work to implement the Primary Health Care Strategy and the population-based funding formulae for District Health Boards.”

Comments on this report were invited and were due in to the Ministry by 18 December 2002.

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