Health Care Homes
Health Care Home (HCH)
The Health Care Home is a modernised and more effective general practice, delivering more proactive and comprehensive care to patients and whānau.
An HCH general practice is the main providers of a patients’ care and experiences, optimized to deliver appropriate services for patients. They have strong relationships with community, hospital and specialist services and might include other services such as rehab, rapid response services and some outpatients services, previously delivered in a hospital by a specialist.
For patients of HCH practices, the change will mean they have more access to same-day appointments and other ways to consult with their doctors, including receiving medical advice by phone and, in some instances, using telehealth services. These changes will be phased in over the course of the HCH programme, with the first priority being improved patient access for urgent and unplanned care and better care for those with long-term conditions.
There’s also potential for more treatments to move from hospital-based care to general practice as ability and capacity increases, similar to how the administration of IV antibiotics for cellulitis is already being provided at some GP clinics.
Health Care Homes
- Improving access by offering alternative options for patients via email, video, telephone and group consultations
- Targeting of face to face consultations to those that need them most.
- Proactive care and support for self-management for all patients
- Longer appointments for those with more complex needs.
- Valuing patient and clinician time so ensuring both are used effectively.
- Shifting general practice from a reactive service to one where all consultations are planned with the patient.
- Moving to a shared, cloud-based patient information system to enable timely care and effective coordination of activity
- Expanding the primary care team with new roles. Planning and co-ordinating care as inter-disciplinary teams for, and with, those with more complex needs
- Removing waste in practice systems and processes that adds no value to the patient the practice or the system