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Quality Improvement & Innovation

Consumer Information

Standards in Action

The Standards in Action Project is to improve understanding of the legislative and contractual obligations to the Standards (who has to do what, when). The Ministry of Health contracted with Platform (the trading name of the Association of Support Service and Community Development in Mental Health), which is a national NGO sector membership organisation that seeks to develop community responses and options for mental health consumers.

The first part of the project involved delivering workshops throughout the country and asking providers to support each other in implementing the Standards. The second part of the project was to develop guidelines including:

Provider obligations (legal and contractual frameworks)
A “how to” implement the standards
Templates for particular standards
Continuous quality improvement philosophy and practice
Templates for risk management
Examples of best practice

The Standards considered in the guidelines are the:

Mental Health Sector Standards
Health and Disability Sector Standards
Infection Control
Restraint Minimisation and Safe Practices

The Standards have an emphasis on:

Consumers getting information on the service they intend to use
That the information they receive is understood by them and is suited to their needs (e.g. language used, reading level, medium of information)
Consumers are fully involved in planning what service/support they get
Consumers are able to be involved in policy development, governance and evaluation in such a way that they can meaningfully influence decision making
Consumers are able to complain and their complaint is dealt with fairly and in a timely manner
Consumers know that they have a right to an advocate to support them and know how to access these people
Consumers are able to make informed choices about all aspects of their support without harassment or coercion.

Under the National Mental Health Sector Standards, family/whanau may also be involved with consumer consent.

What are the “Standards in Action” guidelines?

The information in Standards in Action has been designed to:
Be sufficiently prescriptive of service performance without limiting service flexibility
Focus on the standards while also supporting a broader approach to continuous quality improvement and good practice
Advise services of their most important legal obligations

The information, however, is not a black and white solution to the everyday issues of service delivery.

Click here to visit the Platform site (www.platform.org.nz)

Improving Quality Network Meeting a Success

An improving quality network of health leaders was floated with New Zealand delegates at the 3rd Asia Pacific Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care and was met with an enthusiastic response.

The Ministry of Health’s Gillian Bohm invited all the New Zealand delegates to a meeting on the evening of the second day of the Forum to network and discuss the idea of a New Zealand network of health sector leaders with an interest in quality improvement. Over 130 people joined the discussion.

Gillian says there could not have been a better setting for the launch by the Minister of Improving Quality (IQ): A systems approach for the New Zealand health and disability sector. The Forum provided the largest meeting of people wanting to learn and share information about quality improvement in health care ever held in New Zealand.

Gillian says the strength of the strategy comes in part from the large number of people who assisted in its preparation. She gave special thanks to all those who had contributed, even in small ways, to the development of this strategic direction. It is reflected by the proverb adopted for IQ: He iti ra, he iti mapihi pounamu – A small contribution can be as valuable as a precious stone.

The meeting spent some time discussing the focus of a New Zealand IQ network including its membership and ways forward. Gillian proposed that any network would need a vision that is both inspirational and accessible and referred them to a quote from Don Berwick, ‘We envision a system of care in which those who give care can boast about their work, and those who receive care can feel total trust and confidence in the care they are receiving.’

The audience responded enthusiastically to their task and their comments and suggestions will be drawn together and fed back to the participants.

For those who were not at the meeting and would like to be involved, email your details to gillian_bohm@moh.govt.nz and ask to be included in further discussions.

The Ministry hopes the IQ network will be a vehicle for promoting a culture of quality improvement and leadership at all levels.

Improving Quality Network Form (RTF, 886 KB)

District Health Board Patient Satisfaction Report

This Excel file requires macros to be enabled in order to run. It contains graphs of Patient satisfaction responses by District Health Board from June 2002 to March 2003.

The responses are also split up into inpatient and outpatient replies.

District Health Board Patient Satisfaction Report, June 2002-March 2003 (Excel, 1 MB)

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