Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes

We are pleased to announce that West End Medical Centre is amongst the first 4 selected practices offering a new medical service called Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes.

West End Medical Centre has been involved with the roll out of Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes since July. This is an exciting new initiative that will take our services to a new level. Primary Care in New Zealand are aiming to cater better for the needs of our increasing ageing population, some of whom are living with one or several long-term conditions.

What are Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes?

Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes is a collaborative programme between Northland DHB and the Northland PHOs. At this stage 4 practices across Northland have taken part in the first roll-out of this new service. Our needs for more accessible healthcare services are different today then what they used to be. Times have changed and we started integrating technology to our benefit and therefore able to provide easier access to medical attention from rural and more remote locations for your whanau and communities.

This new program aims to make healthcare more accessible as well as:

  • Being more patient centred
  • Valuing your time
  • Reducing inequalities
  • Freeing up time to do things differently especially for patients with higher needs or higher risks by being more proactive about planning their next steps
  • Improving coordination of care between organisations
  • Supporting each team member of our practice to be working at the top of their skill set

Check out this video to learn more: https://youtu.be/iYYJJCfTV0U

What is going to change at Medical West End Centre?

Most changes will be obvious for you however, a big part will be on an IT-level.

How will these changes be obvious to me?

Waiting Area

We have removed telephones from our waiting area to create a quieter, less stressful and more welcoming place with more seating for your comfort. This will give our staff the ability to focus solely on greeting you and making sure your needs are being met.

Removing telephones from the waiting area will also allow us to prioritise your calls and requests for appointments. Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes offer Nurse-led clinics and a new GP service, called Doctor Triage services which will be starting from the 26th September 2017.

Doctor Triage Service

When you ring before 9am for a same day appointment the receptionist will give you the option of having a doctor call you back between 9 to 9.30am and will take down your details and the number you can be contacted on within the next hour.

These requests will then be passed on to a Doctor (where possible your own Doctor) or sometimes a Nurse and they will call you back to discuss your request. This is a short call to see if you need an appointment that day or to organise a phone consultation later that day. In some cases, you won’t need to leave home as the Doctor may be able to deal with your request over the phone, answer your questions and come up with a management plan. Be assured that if it is necessary that you need to see a Doctor that day, there are an allocated number of appointments kept available by the Doctor to make sure you can be seen promptly.

This process will ensure that your needs are being met and that you will be seen in a time that suits the level of urgency of your needs.

Nurse Led Clinics

Neighbourhood Healthcare Homes allow us to expand the role of nurses to fully utilize their skill sets. We are now offering daily Nurse-Led clinics in addition to regular doctor appointments, allowing us to have more appointments and, thereby see more patients each day at a lower cost for you.

Our nurses are able to see and treat a number of basic medical conditions (e.g. sore throats, impetigo etc.) under standing orders. This will be done under the supervision of our GPs and the nurse will be able to call the GP into the consultation if necessary.

The “Work-Up”

Another benefit of the new set up, is what we call the Work-Up. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing your doctor and finding out that simple procedures that were necessary to make your appointment effective had not been performed. Therefore, prior to your appointment the nurse will work with you to ensure that all observations, tests, or reports are completed before you are seen by the doctor. Sometimes this is not possible to be predicted ahead of time, but for those tests that are, we hope this may prevent you from having to make any avoidable appointments. Thus, improving the effectiveness of your visit and reducing the chances of needing to make further unnecessary bookings, therefore saving you both time and money.

ManageMyHealth

Another new feature of New Zealand‘s Primary Care system is “ManageMyHealth”. ManageMyHealth is a computerised patient portal which allows you to make a single standard appointments for yourself, receive recalls and see all future planned recalls as well as request a repeat of regular prescription, see test results and your consultation notes online.

Being computerised and offering apps for Apple and other smartphones, you as well as your GP will be able to access all your health-related information anytime and from anywhere. If you are interested in registering with ManageMyHealth or if you are having difficulty activating your registration, please approach Julie at reception.

We are looking forward to any kind of feedback on how you experience our latest service addition