Target recycled as ‘performance metric’

Te Whatu Ora cautions against comparing the new performance target with the old because of “data availability” issues

Former health minister Tony Ryall’s six-hour emergency department target has been recycled back onto the frontline of healthcare measurement reporting as one of Te Whatu Ora’s six “new” performance metrics.

They join six existing measurements, also called “high level indicators”, in statistics to be published monthly by the agency.

Under the metric now called “short stays in ED performance”, the agency reports that performance trended downwards last year, because of “increased acute pressures on the whole system”.

Last January, 79 per cent of ED patients had an ED stay of less than six hours, declining to 71 per cent in October, the latest month’s statistics reported.

Mr Ryall’s target was 95 per cent. In early 2019, national performance was 90 per cent, and four DHBs were meeting the 95 per cent target.

However, Te Whatu Ora cautions against comparing the new performance target with the old because of “data availability” issues.

The other 11 metrics are:

• the proportion of ED patients admitted to a ward,
• ED attendance numbers,
• number of people waiting more than a year for public hospital planned care,
• number of patients given a commitment to treatment but not treated within four months,
• number of patients waiting longer than four months for a first specialist assessment,
• the proportion of eligible cancer patients who receive their first treatment within 31 days of a healthcare practitioner’s decision to treat,
• acute hospital bed days per capita,
• ambulatory sensitive hospitalisations for the middle-aged and young children,
• young people’s access to specialist mental health services within three weeks of referral, and
• the immunisation rate for children aged two.

Recent figures for all these metrics are available as downloadable Excel spreadsheets on the Te Whatu Ora website. A direct link to the page is here.