Nigel Copson loves to find a problem – and fix it. He leads a team of two planned care coordinators and a data analyst, dedicated to finding ways to deliver the Minister’s health targets, to reduce the time for patients to be seen and receive their treatment.
While the team may be small, their work can have a big impact on patient care. As well as monitoring our progress towards meeting the targets, they work with teams and services to identify areas for improvement and implement national guidelines and tools to improve our delivery of timely health care.
Anyone who has worked in a large complex system like healthcare knows that, however much we want to, it’s not always easy to improve the way we do things. There are so many moving pieces that finding ways to make effective change is hard. But that’s exactly what Nigel and his team specialise in.
“We are lucky because we have visibility of many systems and we can see where they interact, and how they could be better coordinated. And we are also fortunate to have the bandwidth to analyse what’s going on and look at ways to improve the way we work.”
Planned care covers many aspects of a patients journey through the health system, and the team work with outpatient and inpatient services, theatre teams, primary, community and rural healthcare, as well as liaising at a regional and national level.
“One thing I love about my job is the variety. There are so many areas within planned care, and so many different aspects to think about. We know that everyone wants to offer our patients the best care possible, but it’s often hard for those on the ground to see what can change.”
The work often starts with looking at data to identify where there is room for improvement. Equally important is building relationships and listening to people to understand the barriers. As Nigel explains, you can’t see the solutions until you really understand the problem.
The team have worked on various projects to help deliver healthcare more efficiently. That could be supporting Primary Care to deliver more services in the community, analysing surgery time to make booking systems more efficient, or identifying patients and whānau who would benefit from support to get the care they need.
“Although the problems are hard, once you have enough data we can see where we can make a difference,” says Nigel. “We see our role as giving the people the information to empower them to make changes.”
