Tools help follow health trends, DHB performance

TWO new statistical tools are now available online to help people monitor health trends and the performance of their district health boards.

However, the extra information comes with a warning not to jump to conclusions based on isolated numbers, and that the tools should not be used to ‘‘rank’’ organisations or regions.

The Health Quality & Safety Commission’s ‘‘dashboard of health system quality’’ was launched last week.

The dashboard creates a dartboardlike graphic, with a green centre and orange and red outer rings.

Each DHB’s performance in six categories — timely access, safety, effectiveness, patientcentred, equity and efficiency — is registered. Green results are on target or better and red results may indicate areas of concern.

However, the commission’s director of health quality intelligence, Richard Hamblin, warned not to take all results at face value. For example, for a smaller DHB a variance in some measurements of relatively small numbers might make a big difference.

‘‘The new tool is not a way to rank DHBs from ‘good’ to ‘bad’,’’ Mr Hamblin said.

‘‘The different measures cannot be combined to give a meaningful overall score. Instead, the dashboard is designed to highlight patterns.’’

The measures in the scale were relative of a DHB against a national average, Mr Hamblin said.

‘‘In theory, where there is relatively little variation in the distribution of DHBs for any given measure, an apparently ‘low’ result can in fact be very similar to others.

‘‘In the same way, where all DHBs have good results, an apparently ‘low’ result can in

❛ There have been some great achievements made in these

areas by DHBs, and we want to make sure they’re easy to view and understand

Richard Hamblin

fact be perfectly normal.

‘‘The reverse can also be true.’’

The dashboard information was similar to performance measurements provided to district health board meetings, but this style of presentation was a first for New Zealand and also rare internationally, Mr Hamblin said.

‘‘This is another step towards openness and transparency in our health sector,’’ he said.

‘‘There have been some great achievements made in these areas by DHBs, and we want to make sure they’re easy to view and understand.’’

The Ministry of Health has also moved to present more data online in easily understood formats.

Meanwhile, results from the New Zealand Health Survey — an annual questionnaire answered by around 13,000 adults and 4000 children — have been put into an online tool, the ‘‘Regional Data Explorer’’.

The tool presents the most recent results, as well as trends, for each district health board, public health unit and regional council.

‘‘It provides information on health behaviours and risk factors, health status, longterm conditions, and access to and use of health care for both adults and children,’’ a ministry spokesman said.

The Explorer allows results to be compared across regions, and compare regions against national results.

Gender, age, ethnicity and neighbourhood deprivation can also be factored in.