Services
 

Clinical Support

Support for clinicians

One of the key benefits of being part of the Rotorua Area Primary Health Services (RAPHS) is having access to clinical support in the form of current, Rotorua area-specific information, quality improvement programmes, and professional development opportunities for General Practitioners, Nurses, Practice Managers and other staff.

We promote a team approach to delivering clinical programmes – supporting each other and working in a collegial manner under the guidance of our Clinical Leaders Group.

This teamwork also extends to promoting and delivering professional development services such as formal competency reviews and group clinical supervision. This important and developing area of RAPHS’ work greatly assists us in attracting and retaining high-calibre health care practitioners.

The high-quality information made possible through the RAPHS’ shared information technology enables us to generate monthly, quarterly and annual reviews of clinical services and programmes across the 15 participating general practices.

Part of our Continuous Quality Improvement programme is providing frequent feedback and data analysis to members on key aspects of primary health care such as smoking status audits, influenza vaccinations, blood pressure recording, and mental health that is specific to the RAPHS and its patients and helps us meet our 13 national overall population health objectives.

This meaningful information is a service is made possible by:

  • Our powerful, secure and world-class information technology
  • The quality of (non-identifiable) patient data recorded by RAPHS members
  • The professional skills of our staff, and
  • The immense skill and experience of our Clinical Leaders Group.

Smart thinking

Each year we set out strategic goals that will bring us closer to our overall population health objectives, which are consistent with those set out by the Ministry of Health. These are to:

  1. Reduce smoking
  2. Improve nutrition
  3. Reduce obesity
  4. Increase the level of physical activity
  5. Reduce the rate of suicides and suicide attempts
  6. Minimise harm to individuals and the community caused both by alcohol and illicit and other drug use
  7. Reduce the incidence and impact of cancer
  8. Reduce the incidence and impact of cardiovascular disease
  9. Reduce the incidence and impact of diabetes
  10. Improve oral health
  11. Reduce violence in interpersonal relationships, families, schools and communities
  12. Improve the health status of people with severe mental illness
  13. Ensure access to appropriate child health care services including well child and family health care and immunisation.