Our Strength is in Our Links

To deliver on the many priorities identified in the Canterbury DHB's District Annual Plan and the Canterbury Clinical Network's 2010-2013 Implementation Plan, a new way of working together has to be developed. The forecasted impacts on provision of health care (i.e., aging population, increasing globalisation with ensuing health risks, aging workforce, etc.) mean one health professional alone (such as a GP) cannot provide the complex, holistic care that future patients are going to need.

Access to health services is a multi-factorial problem, yet all agree that care delivered closer to the person's 'home' is the best option. Certainly keeping people out of hospital unless they really need it is a better solution for both the patient/whanau and the system. Care must be distributed and delivered by the right person, at the right place and time.

This means relationships between health professionals - and, increasingly, social service providers - need to be enhanced and enabled to work better together. New roles may need to be developed and new practices need to be put into place. New funding structures and business models are required to enable teams to deliver this care.

Clinicians around Canterbury have been asked to consider how their clinical and business practice will be impacted by the realities of delivering health care now and in the future. With the impact of the September and especially February earthquakes, this future reality is now!

There are several initiatives linked to new models of care:

• Project Chain (an electronic solution for case managing patients - see below)
• Integrated Family Health Centres (IFHCs)
• Pharmacy SLA (pharmacists and general practitioners working together flexibly)
• Medication Management Service (mobile pharmacists assisting community pharmacy to deliver a new patient and general practitioner service)
• and others.

Technology Solution to Enable Shared Care

HSAGlobal is delivering a technology solution that works for us in Canterbury. The software is called the Collaborative Care Management Solution (CCMS).

We will be working with GPs, pharmacists, hospital specialists and hospital services and other community health providers to identify patients with complex needs such as multiple chronic conditions, difficulties in accessing general practice, and/or multiple ED presentations to enrol them in a shared care programme. The first phase has been patients of the CREST (community rehabilitation) programme.

View Matt Hector-Taylor's latest PowerPoint presentation here.

Steering Group to Lead Design

A steering group, the Chain Steering Group (previously called the Clinical Delivery Management Group (CDMG)) has been established to guide the activity in this project. All documentation for this project can be found under Documents Project Chain subfolder.

If you are interested in hearing more about this project, ring Deborah Callahan, CCN Project Manager, on 03 353-0211 or email.