University of Otago medical school interns (from left)
Boomi Kwon, Nic Rawcliffe, Rebecca Crabbe, Johanna
Chisholm, Raja Palepu, Timothy Oh, Sangsu Sohn, and Suhaila
Al-Wahaibi presented their health scorecard at the
University of Otago yesterday. Photo by Jane Dawber.
New Zealand's first overall health system scorecard was
unveiled in Dunedin yesterday. The system received a
respectable 71% - but performed poorly in many areas.
The work was carried out by eight University of Otago
sixth-year medical trainee interns, and supervised by
Associate Prof Robin Gauld, of the university's preventive
and social medicine department.
Of five measures, New Zealand scored highest in efficiency
(81%) and lowest in equality (58%).
Using national and international data, the students set
benchmarks and compared where New Zealand stood in relation
to them, although on some measures a lack of data was an
issue.
Of 22 contributing OECD countries, New Zealand spent the
second-highest proportion of its healthcare dollars in 2008 -
7.2% - on administration. The highest was Mexico.
Co-presenting the results, Nic Rawcliffe said health-care
issues that had received public policy attention, such as
free GP visits for under 6-year-olds, was where New Zealand
excelled.
This indicated New Zealand might need to target areas where
it did not perform well, such as infant mortality, obesity
rates, oral health, adverse events in hospital and reviewing
patient medication upon hospital discharge.
The scorecard highlighted that 13.1% of New Zealanders had
suffered adverse events in public hospitals, although the
rate compared favourably with other countries.
New Zealand per capita rate of doctors was about half that of
top-ranked OECD countries, but its people had good access to
GPs, who appeared to act as efficient "gate-keepers" to other
services.
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