Rest homes on DHB radar

The Waikato DHB is on a drive to sign up rest home residents to its virtual health project, SmartHealth.

But health bosses say the move isn’t an attempt to inflate user numbers ahead of a crucial probe into the project.

The health board launched SmartHealth in 2016 with the aim of giving people access to doctors via a smartphone, computer or tablet.

To date, the project has struggled to attract users, with 9674 people registered with the app.

Of those, about 6577 are active users. In November, the DHB signalled it would carry out an independent review of HealthTap, the online platform used to deliver SmartHealth.

SmartHealth has been plagued by controversy since its launch, including allegations the majority of those signed up to the app were DHB employees and the project itself was given the green light based on incomplete paperwork.

On December 1, State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes announced he had requested that Auditor-General Greg Schollum investigate the SmartHealth project.

Hughes has also asked for a probe into the DHB’s contract with HealthTap.

The health board’s two-year contract with HealthTap costs taxpayers US$5 million per year.

Waikato DHB executive director of virtual care and innovation Darrin Hackett said staff would continue signing up people to SmartHealth despite the pending review.

The DHB is also continuing to hire staff to work on SmartHealth. Currently, it has a vacancy for an administrator.

Health bosses aim to have 20,000 users signed up to SmartHealth by the end of 2018.

Signing up rest-home residents wasn’t an attempt to artificially boost user numbers, Hackett said.

‘‘It doesn’t look bad, but the lower the sign-ups, the more constrained you are to deliver virtual health,’’ he said.

‘‘If we don’t reach 20,000 users, I think we’d need to look at why that was the case.’’

Currently, six rest homes are using SmartHealth to access after-hours health services.

The DHB is in talks with another 10 homes.

Hackett said negative media coverage associated with disgraced health boss Nigel Murray had created challenges for the DHB.

Murray championed the virtual health app and took numerous trips to the United States to visit HealthTap’s offices.

He resigned on October 5, part way through an investigation that found he misspent health dollars.

‘‘The ongoing tying of SmartHealth to the issues around Nigel Murray haven’t been helpful because it creates an impression that somehow they’re connected and they’re not,’’ Hackett said.

‘‘What we can’t do is allow the transgression of one person to create a vacuum of care and that’s what the whole organisation is really focused on doing.’’

Dr Damian Tomic, Waikato DHB’s clinical director of primary and integrated care, said engaging with rest homes made sense from a clinical point of view.

SmartHealth allowed rest homes to access after-hours healthcare and meant residents wouldn’t go to hospital needlessly.

Nurses based in the homes took care of logging residents into accounts and navigating the technology.

‘‘Every time a patient goes to ED, that costs us a minimum of $500 to $800 and we have thousands of patients unnecessarily turning up to ED each year across the Waikato,’’ Tomic said.

‘‘We’ve got an elderly frail group sitting in a silo facility where the nurse manager believes her only option is maybe call 111. That’s a ridiculous scenario.’’