Mahitahi Hauora is a PHO with a difference

Mahitahi Hauora is moving away from the traditional PHO role of ‘middleman’ to a more service-oriented relationship with our member practices.

We all share a commitment to achieving health equity for whānau and have been striving to achieve equity for many years. On many occasions, the funding approach has hampered progress.

We’ve brought an end to complex multiple contract arrangements, which resulted in a siloed approach to care prioritisation and delivery. We’ve also changed the way we provide funding to our practices. We’ve redirected funding for Services to Improve Access, Care Plus (Kia Ora Vision), Health Promotion, Rural Funding and half of System Level Measures funding to help our practices achieve equity for their enrolled populations.

Mahitahi Hauora general practices receive all PHOSA funding through a single contract with us – the Equity for Whānau Agreement.

A high trust, high accountability partnership

The Equity for Whānau Agreement sets clear accountabilities for improving equity and outcomes for priority groups while allowing for flexibility in how general practices achieve these accountabilities. The Agreement identifies three key areas for accountability: Access; Clinical; and Experience of Care.

Your practice will need to develop an annual plan for achieving these accountabilities. If you need assistance with completing your annual plan, please contact your relationship partner.

Reporting

The three areas of accountability form the basis of a reporting template that you’ll need to complete each quarter. For each of these areas of accountability, you’ll need to report:

• Objectives
• Data
• Actions
• Progress status
• Other relevant information, such as trends, risks and issues, opportunities and successes.

Other than your PHOSA reporting, this is the only reporting template you’ll need to complete.

We’ve created a customised suite of dashboards in Thalamus to help our general practices track progress towards the clinical indicators in the Equity for Whānau Agreement. The dashboards pull together performance data charts on eight-month immunisation rate, stop smoking brief advice, diabetes control, Kia Ora Vision enrolment and Care Plans. Practices can click on each of these to obtain more detailed data, such as patient lists and breakdowns by ethnicity.

Performance-based funding

The SLM component of funding is linked to reporting, performance against indicators, and achievement and maintenance of Foundation Standards.

Engaging with whānau

We encourage practices to engage with whānau about what matters to them. Engaging with whānau is fundamental to help your practice understand how best to address the three key focus areas in the Equity for Whānau Agreement – access to services, clinical delivery, and experience of care – for your enrolled population.

Meaningful engagement takes an ongoing commitment to a new way of approaching care. We’re here to support you with advice and guidance, as well as our Papa Tikanga – a helpful resource for your engagement kete.

The 2023 Equity for Whānau Agreement

When we introduced the Equity for Whānau Agreement in July 2022, we committed to review it within a year to make sure the approach was achieving its goals and working well for practices and patients.

We carried out this review in May 2023. As a result, the 2023 Equity for Whānau Agreement contains a greater emphasis on closing equity gaps rather than achieving overall targets, and clinical indicators have been adjusted by our clinical directors in consultation with regional clinical leads to ensure alignment with national and regional priorities. We’ve also introduced greater flexibility for practices for select clinical indicators that are meaningful for your population, and greater support to make reporting easier.

More information

For more information, or if you have questions, please contact General Practice Liaison.