Primary Care
The Minister of Health launched the Primary Health Care Strategy in February 2001 and this placed a greater emphasis on population health, health promotion and preventative care. This strategy included the establishment of not-for-profit Primary Health Organisations (PHOs). The strategy defined a PHO as a “…new way of arranging health care in the community to make sure people get the first level health care they need. It is a group of health providers whose job it is to look after all the people enrolled with them”. A PHO is a team of doctors, nurses and other health professionals (such as Maori health workers and health promotion workers) who are working with their community to provide a better health services.
PHOs are funded under a capitation based funding formula (CBF) and receive a set amount of funding from the government to subsidise a range of health services. The funding is based on the numbers and characteristics (e.g., age, sex, and ethnicity) of people enrolled with them. PHOs also receive additional funding for a range of new functions such as health promotion and extra services to improve access for high-need groups.
General Practice services play a major role in the delivery of primary health services. PHOs contract with general practices to provide the funding to subsidise the delivery of “First Level Services”. These First Level Services are the essential building block to Primary Health Care and there purpose is to improve, maintain and restore health and ensure access to care. Under capitation based funding PHOs and their general practices are paid according to the number and characteristics of people enrolled not the number of times patients are seen.
Although, General Practice services play a major role in the delivery of primary health services, and in most cases they are the first point of contact for people to access the health system, the PHO also has a range of other contracted providers who provide a mix of services for the enrolled population. This includes Services to Improve Access (SIA) and Health promotion Services.
- Services to Improve Access include (but are not limited to) the following: a) healthy lifestyles, b) high need diabetes, c) marae based programmes, d) Pacific activity programmes, e) free home visiting palliative care, f) oral health checks for children, g) mobile and community outreach services, and h) other persons with high needs in the community.
- Health Promotion include (but are not limited to) the following: a) smoke-free, b) sexual health, c) oral health screening, d) immunisation coordination and e) health advice.
Learn more about how HDANZ works with General Practice >>
