Big slice of GP work ‘could be done by telehealth’

A Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora boss says up to half of all GP work could be done by telehealth — including by overseas-based doctors.

The agency’s director of living well, Martin Hefford, was speaking at the Building the Future of Health hui this week, a regular webinar to update health professionals — and anyone else interested — on Te Whatu’s work.

Hefford said the “medical cavalry” was not coming to save the country from the shortage of GPs, predicted to grow to 1000 by 2033.

About 40 to 50 per cent of GP work could be done by telehealth consultations, he said.

“We are not going to be able to train enough doctors to cover the GP shortage that we forecast and we need to look at other ways of managing access and managing health problems and demand,” he said.

Telehealth is when patients consult their GP via video or phone calls.

Because GPs’ locations did not always align with the areas with the greatest need, telehealth could give more people access to care, he said.

And help could come from abroad too. “It’s a great opportunity to balance demand in rural areas, demand in areas with high-need populations, with people who might be operating from anywhere in New Zealand or anywhere actually in the world, providing they are New Zealand trained or New Zealand accredited,” he said.

One major GP group said it was “dismayed” by the comments.

The General Practitioners Owners Association chair Angus Chambers said it showed Te Whatu Ora did not understand the work of GPs.

Telehealth was a great complement to general practice for matters that did not need face to face intervention, but some other care could only be achieved by being in the same room with someone, he said. That included “opportunistic care”. That was where doctors might notice another problem or take the chance to talk to their patients about matters other than the initial issue.

He was also annoyed by Hefford’s suggestion that non-doctor roles play a greater part in clinical care — such as nurses, health care assistants, physios and health coaches.

“This is yet another example of Te Whatu Ora misunderstanding and undervaluing GPs’ work.”

He questioned if Te Whatu Ora was deliberately underinvesting to fix the GP shortage. “We’ve been warning of the workforce shortage for decades and they haven’t really done anything about it.”

Health NZ’s national clinical director of primary care, Dr Sarah Clarke, said many practices already gave many services via telehealth, such as letting patients check test results or request prescriptions online.

Te Whatu Ora defined “telehealth” in this broader sense, not just video or phone sessions, she said. —RNZ