Synergia - Design Realise Sustain

Issue

For the last decade the New Zealand Ministry of Health has been committed to increasing the productivity and reducing waiting times for elective surgery. The rationing of limited resources and the prioritisation of access to people most in need has been central to achieving these goals. A key component off the solution which has driving huge advances over the 10 years has been the development of a range of assessment tools to increase the consistency of prioritisation for access based on need. Cardiac surgery was one of the initial elective services included in the programme.

Solution

Using our Informis Platform we developed an online system for DHBs to manage their cardiac surgery assessments and resulting waiting lists. The system is currently being used by 4 out of the 5 major cardiac surgery centres cross New Zealand. It utilises a new and innovative assessment tool developed by the Ministry of Health. The system enables assessors to complete assessments, view calculated need based scores based on live analysis of the responses. It also enables the MoH to have a national perspective of the cardiac surgery system and undertake real-time analysis of the data to inform the refinement of the assessment tools and also the broader roll out of the approach.

Outcome

The waiting times for cardiac surgery have decreased significantly over the last 10 years. Synergia has helped by providing a consistent online mechanism for all DHBs to undertake assessments and collect the necessary data to analysis waiting times and ensure the system continuously improve.