Quality review – Aiming for Excellence and CORNERSTONE

Today the College is announcing a review of our quality standard Aiming for Excellence, and our quality improvement programme, CORNERSTONE®.

Aiming for Excellence and CORNERSTONE® have been in place for about 20 years. While they have evolved during that time, change in the sector, and in New Zealand as a whole, has happened faster, and things are now out of kilter.

There are major changes happening in general practice and primary care, and we have a Government committed to having more services delivered in primary care, and to training more GPs.

We need a fit-for-purpose, modern, quality improvement programme for general practice that creates the right environment for these changes to be successful.

College members, practice teams and Primary Health Organisations have told us they want quality standards that support environments where more care can be delivered safely and equitably. Our own research, which we are releasing today, confirms this.

College members, practice teams and Primary Health Organisations have told us they want quality standards that support environments where more care can be delivered safely and equitably. Our own research, which we are releasing today, confirms this.

Our plan is to completely revamp Aiming for Excellence and the CORNERSTONE® programme. The following principles will be followed in the review process:

• a mandatory, minimum quality standard that all general practices must meet – currently the Foundation Standard should continue;
• the new programme should focus on quality indicators and measures that enable care to be delivered safely and equitably;
• there should be non-financial incentives for practices to undertake quality improvement activities that improve patient outcomes for enrolled populations;
• there should be a recognition system to acknowledge practices that consistently perform well against the standard;
• compliance costs should be reduced through initiatives such as developing a framework to cross-credit activities done for continuing professional development, and other assessment and certification purposes with CORNERSTONE® requirements and vice versa;
• as much assessment as possible done online to reduce time spent in practices; and
• there are tie-ins with other credentialing assessments, eg: day surgery requirements.

We won’t know all of the details until we’ve done further work, including consulting extensively with the sector (PHOs, practices, College members, PMAANZ, the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders).

We have set ourselves a target of having a new programme agreed by 1 December 2018, for practices to start implementing from 1 April 2019.

We know that there are many CORNERSTONE® accredited practices who are due for an in-practice assessment during 2018. The information below outlines the options for affected practices.

The College is committed to working with members, practices and important stakeholders to develop the new CORNERSTONE® programme.

If you would like more information or would like to be involved in the review, please call the College on 0800 433 733.

Cornerstone Review Q &As

Why are we making changes?

When is the review and how long will it go for?

What will happen to practices on the CORNERSTONE® programme?

What is going to change?

What is going to stay the same?

What is happening to the Foundation Standard?

Will teaching practices be affected?

Why has the College Board imposed deadlines on teaching practices to become CORNERSTONE® accredited?

I'm working towards CORNERSTONE® and now it's changing. Have I wasted that work?

What do we need to know or do while the review takes place?

Practices that already have CORNERSTONE® accreditation won’t have to do anything differently until the review and revamp has been completed.

We will contact practices working towards their accreditation to help them develop a plan for achieving this goal.

Once the new quality standard and programme has been developed, we will provide information and training to ensure a smooth transition from the current programme to the new one.

Where can I get more information, or provide feedback, on how this affects my practice?