Source: Radio New Zealand
Health planning looked at gaps between services. (File photo) RNZ
Health planning helps the medical system figure out what needs were most important to New Zealanders, but ongoing budget constraints were proving challenging, a doctor says.
Good health data was key to protecting the health and safety of the community, Dr Gary Jackson from Health New Zealand’s population health team told Nine to Noon, but more investment was needed.
The population health team was made up of public health doctors, analysts, demographers and advisors and Jackson said evidence from health data could be powerful when used well.
The health system collected a lot of data, he said, and helped think about the gap between services that were being provided and services that could be provided and trying to plan around that.
He said there were always tight budgets and it was “quite a trick” to work on how you could get into the prevention space of diseases.
The data the team looked at was collected from all over the health system, he said including from patients at hospitals and laboratory test results. The data was anonymous, he said, but had an identifier so data sets could be linked together.
“[We’re] trying to paint a picture for the country about what is the most important needs, where should we be putting our efforts the most.”
Jackson said there were always a number of areas that were trying to be improved and the whole system was “running very tight”.
“[The] actual money that New Zealand public has invested in the public health system has been flat since 2010… The health system is constantly trying to live within its means while we’re still getting new technologies, new medications… life expectancy has kept increasing in that time.”
It was a “constant battle” to keep money, Jackson said, while the national public health service was protected, some of the more clinical pathways seemed to have that constant battle.
He said health planning had been “very successful” in treating people and keeping people alive, but it did create extra demand on the health system.
“If those people died they wouldn’t be using health services, so the success of the system is a success that adds to the burden.”
Jackson said there had been good evidence of impact prevention programs both with type two diabetes and weight management, along with looking at the standardised intervention rates across the country.
“We got some good data to show some of these specialist services are actually quite well spread across the country.”
But the biggest funding constraint was around data and digital, Jackson said, and he wanted to see more investment in that.
He was also worried the data was not being collected around the communities, housing and incomes of people with less means who were more likely to need health services.
Some people were avoiding health services, Jackson said, which made it hard to track.
He said the easiest way to save the health system money was by people maintaining a healthy weight, exercise and not smoking.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand