EpiQual to provide strategic coordination for quality improvement and epidemiological activity

Media Release

19 August 2005

EpiQual to provide strategic coordination for quality improvement and epidemiological activity

The National Health Epidemiology and Quality Assurance Advisory Committee (EpiQual), identified in their first annual report released today, a lack of national coordination of quality improvement activities in the New Zealand health and disability sector.

To address this, EpiQual chairperson Denise Hutchins said the committee's vision for future development would focus on providing strategic leadership and a coordination point for quality improvement across all parts of the sector.

EpiQual was established under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 and met for the first time in March last year. As its name suggests, it has been given the task of providing advice to the Minister on two key areas: quality and epidemiology*. EpiQual will look at the quality of health and disability services and how they can be improved, using the evidence from epidemiological studies.

The report noted that EpiQual's first year had been devoted to developmental work, exploring the diversity of quality and epidemiological activity in the wider health sector and researching opportunities on how EpiQual can make a difference.

Among its recommendations, it noted that the balance of the committee would be improved by gaining representation from people with knowledge and experience in mental health and also those with knowledge of consumer participation and experience in consumer representation.

It also noted that it was aware of enthusiasm in the health sector for the establishment of a perioperative mortality review committee. The committee considered further policy work was required to fully scope the need, feasibility and value of establishing such a committee before advising the Minister of Health.

Five key project areas for EpiQual had been identified for the 2005/06 year. The aim of these projects was to engage stakeholders and provide leadership in developing a common vision, language and purpose. A key activity will be to update the Improving Quality (IQ) Action Plan, which has the potential to provide a shared mechanism for quality improvement in New Zealand.

*Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of a disease, or other health-related events, in populations.

View EpiQual’s first report to the Minister of Health (1 March 2004 to 30 April 2005)