Nurse-led programme takes top prize

An innovative pre-admission programme for gynaecology surgery developed by a Waikato Hospital nurse has won a top prize at the annual national health awards.

The nurse-led programme won the best process improvement category at the New Zealand Health Innovation Awards in Wellington last night. It is the first victory for Waikato DHB at the awards since their inception in 2003.

The programme at Waikato Hospital has halved the number of elective gynaecological operations cancelled over six months by using a clinical nurse instead of a clerical staff member to assess which patients are high risk and need to attend a clinic.

Waikato DHB clinical nurse specialist Debi Whitham developed the programme after noticing that elective surgery patients were often waiting hours to see a house surgeon in the pre-admission clinics.

The house surgeons would sometimes get caught up on the wards, resulting in many patients leaving the clinic without being seen. They would then arrive on the day of the operation without having had a pre-operative assessment, which often led to the surgery being cancelled because of the lack of pre-op work.

Mrs Whitham devised a health questionnaire which is sent to all patients having elective gynaecology surgery.

"The initiative saves time for the house surgeons and, most importantly, reduces wasted time for patients while ensuring they are well prepared before surgery," a hospital spokeswoman said.

The idea behind the nurse-led programme was "no surprises on the day of surgery", Mrs Whitham said. "It's all about being proactive in planning pre-surgery to ensure the best outcome for the patient."

She said staff from other DHBs were now visiting Waikato Hospital to see how the nurse-led pre-admission programme works.

"It is just important now that we don't drop the ball. We need to continue to develop and improve the programme so it doesn't stagnate."

The next step is to work on rolling the initiative out to other specialties across the DHB.

Mrs Whitham said she was "very pleased for the women of Waikato" now the project improved their pre-operative pathway, and knowing they were better informed and prepared for elective surgery.

She said she looked forward to using the $4000 prize money to develop the pre-admission service by benchmarking it to the National Health Service model.

Waikato DHB had three other finalists in the awards, which are a joint endeavour between the Ministry of Health and ACC.

The Newborn Hearing Screening Programme in the Excellence in Prevention category; and the separation of conjoined twins and a caregiver training programme provided by Healthcare NZ, supported by the Waikato DHB and the Ministry of Health, were both entries in the Excellence in Treatment category.

Waikato DHB health services general manager Jan Adams said she was thrilled for Mrs Whitham and the DHB's other finalists.

"We are justifiably proud of them ...," Mrs Adams said.

"This result demonstrates the excellent calibre of the staff we have, their innovation and ability to go the extra mile in improving services to our population."

By Natalie Akoorie

Article from www.stuff.co.nz