Centralised Incidents Management for New Zealand General Practices

‘Whānau ora, hapori ora / Healthy families, Healthy communities’. Our primary goal is to lift, elevate and provide resources for Māori that enable them — no matter where or when – to be empowered and achieve wellbeing.’  

This is the vision and main goal of Health Hawke’s Bay, a Primary Health Organisation (PHO) providing health services through general practices and other health providers. 

Their work plays a key role in eliminating health inequities for Māori, Pasifika and high needs populations and focuses on improving and maintaining the health of the enrolled PHO population.

We recently spoke with Erika Hunt, Quality Manager at Health Hawke’s Bay, to learn more about how the organisation is improving day-to-day operations for the practices they support by implementing a customised incident reporting solution by LogiqcQMS.  

Prior to implementing LogiqcQMS incident reporting solution, how was your organisation managing this work?

We are the region’s Primary Health Organisation (PHO) and cover a population of about 167,000. We provide health services to the community through a major network of providers, and we are truly passionate about Māori wellbeing and the health of our community. Before implementing LogiqcQMS, our organisation had to manage all this work quite manually, using simple tools like email and the phone. We work with a high volume of data, and we need to create accurate reports extracted from that data, so doing it manually was very time-consuming, and of course, could also lead to errors.

What was the reason for implementing a new system?

When I joined HHB the initiative was already in place thanks to the amazing job of people such as Michele McCarthy and Fiona Thompson.

One of the main reasons they looked at implementing the system was to improve the quality of the services provided to patients and other customers. We also wanted to improve consumer and organisational safety by early recognition of risks, reporting trends and helping with quality improvements.

We knew it was critical to have a system in place that would enable better communication and collaboration with our practices. That’s why we decided to partner with Logiqc, because their platform helps us communicate and provide better support to all of them, making their everyday work more consistent, or, in other words, making their lives easier! And that’s so important to us, because it means ultimately, that the community benefits from better health services. 

We also knew we needed to upgrade from a paper-based system and implement a solution that would empower us to manage and report incidents and complaints in a more effective way. 

How is the customised incident reporting solution helping and improving HHB’s work?

It’s helping us achieve one of our main organisational goals, which is promoting a culture of shared learning and quality improvement through a safe and timely reporting of incidents and complaints.

There are also benefits that we can appreciate daily, like the fact that we now have an overview of what’s happening across practices. This allows us to streamline the processes involved in providing valuable information to them. For instance, now we can detect issues quicker and be proactive, and, at the same time, give them the support they need in that space with no delays.

LogiqcQMS keeps the information we manage more secure and centralised in one place and helps our team to better manage their day-to-day work. The platform allows us to easily assign tasks, track their completion and collaborate on what’s needed. Things are going to get done! 

As Health Hawke’s Bay Quality Manager, what new opportunities can you identify from having access to consolidated incident trend data across multiple practices?

We are patient and whānau-centred, which enables early identification and review of incidents, as well as sharing valuable learnings with a wider network. 

When you are managing incidents it’s particularly important to have access to vital consolidated data and to identify relevant trends. LogiqcQMS gives us the ability to do that, in a faster and more reliable way, so that we can develop strategies to respond to these trends in line with the needs of the community. 

The analytics data that we retrieve, allows us to identify emerging issues promptly and more effectively. We now have a deeper level of insight, which is given by the consolidated incident trend data. This really helps us to have productive conversations with the practices, because we can better support the reason for change with evidence and drive adoption, which ultimately leads to new and better health services and outcomes for the community. 

Have you encountered any challenges during the implementation?

I deal with the practices daily and understand that when introducing new systems and processes, there must be a direct benefit to the practice. Sometimes in the immediacy of things, it seems easier to stay with existing ways, even though it may be less efficient. To overcome these challenges, we need to demonstrate that the cost/benefit to the Practice is worthwhile, both in the short and medium to long term.  

In relation to this initiative, we need to communicate effectively how the LogiqcQMS will make their job easier by having a good incident and contract management system, which is needed for Foundation Accreditation.

Where would you like to see the initiative in 6 or 12 months?

I’d like the initiative to continue to evolve, as it is doing now. The platform has great core features which can be extended as needed. For instance, when I first joined, I noticed the practices were sending HHB a huge number of emails every time there was an incident. We discussed the issue with the Logiqc team, they took it on board and developed an improved solution for us. Using the LogiqcQMS Incident Register, practices can now communicate directly with our system when there’s an incident, which is faster and more secure than sending and managing information in numerous emails. 

In my job, the ability to generate detailed reporting is critical for planning and improved decision-making, so I’d like to familiarise myself with the other features the platform offers, particularly in relation to analytics. When I first started using the platform it took a while to get used to, but we are now realising the efficiencies that can be gained through using a technology-based solution.