In June, Wellington’s Te Awakairangi Health Network (TeAHN) primary health organisation (PHO) had six general practices achieve Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners’ Foundation Standard certification.
This quality standard provides assurance to patients that the practice delivers best practice health outcomes. Not only has the PHO achieved a 100% pass rate, but it got there one year ahead of schedule.
College General Manager Quality, Kate Wang, visited the PHO’s offices on Thursday 30 June to present the practices (Taita Medical Centre, Pretoria Street Surgery, Main Street Surgery, Kopata Medical Centre, Epuni Medical Centre and Manuka Health Centre) with their Foundation Standard certificates. While there, she commended the PHO, it’s GPs and their support teams on this considerable achievement.
I would like to congratulate everyone working at these practices for attaining their Foundation Standard certification,” says Ms Wang. “While this is a standard that all general practices must achieve by July 2017 to assure they meet their regulatory, professional and legal requirements, getting there is no mean feat.
“The practices have been assessed against 85 criterion (such as patient privacy, healthcare accessibility, cultural awareness) to achieve certification. It is a great accomplishment to complete this process, and the College would also like to recognise the PHO for helping the practices get there,” she says.
“No doubt many people in the practices have been involved in this process to some degree or another. And while it has been a lot of work, the College believes these standards will ultimately result in better care for patients.”
Chief Executive of Te Awakairangi Health Network, Bridget Allan, welcomed the practice teams and Ms Wang to the celebration.
“We are tremendously pleased that these practices have achieved certification and have demonstrated the quality of care they provide to their patients,” says Ms Allan.
“All of practices have commended the support and guidance given to them by TeAHN’s Clinical Quality Manager, Ann Rose. The practices have also valued the regular group meetings where they met and shared resources and ideas, and which enabled them all to meet the standards a year early,” she says.
The Ministry of Health has given all general practices a deadline of July 2017 to achieve the Foundation Standard.
This year two other TeAHN practices have also been assessed for the Aiming for Excellence, Cornerstone accreditation programme for the first time. One received their certificate (Gain Health Centre) and the other is waiting, having completed all their post assessment requirements (Soma Medical Centre). A further four TeAHN practices were also accredited with Cornerstone in 2015 for the first time while others have completed or are completing re-accreditation.
A seventh practice (the newly merged practice in Upper Hutt) has also completed Foundation Standards but was not assessed as they are will continue on to do Cornerstone once the College’s new interpretation guide is released at the College’s Quality Symposium on 28 July.