COMMUNICATIONS

Community Mental Health Initiative A Winner In CDHB’S 2007 Quality And Innovation Awards

A community mental health initiative set up by the Rural Canterbury Primary Health Organisation (PHO) is this year’s supreme winner at the Canterbury District Health Board’s (CDHB) Quality and Innovation Awards.

While entries from the primary health sector have previously been category winners, this is the first time a community health provider has taken out the top award.

The Rural Canterbury PHO’s Brief Intervention Coordination (BIC) Service is a new initiative to improve the services available for clients with mild to moderate mental health issues in the Ashburton, Waimakariri and Banks Peninsula districts. The service came about because people living in rural areas are often not able to access mental health services as easily as people who live in cities.

A total of 15 projects were entered in the fifth annual awards, which are administered by the CDHB Quality and Patient Safety Council. Winners of the Awards were announced at a special event held at Canterbury Horticultural Centre today (19 September). Along with the supreme award, winners from three award categories – community based services, hospital and specialist services and systems improvement – were announced at the ceremony.

The BIC service provides up to five sessions of free psychological intervention for clients and, in some cases, also refers clients to other community agencies, such as Presbyterian Support and the Stop Trust, for ongoing support. Clients are referred to the BIC service through their rural General Practice teams.

Rural Canterbury evaluated the service after 15 months to assess its effectiveness. Even with high service demand, clients were still being seen within one month of the date of referral. The service also helped to reduce client’s distress and overall, both GPs and clients were very satisfied with the service’s quality of care and accessibility. Clients were particularly impressed with the way the service treated them with dignity and respect.

CDHB Corporate Quality and Risk Manager Jan Nicholson says the winning BIC project had a clear vision and has had positive flow-on effects for the rural community. “The results are compelling and have had a positive impact over a wide geographical area.”

Other successful projects in the awards were:

A nurse-led outreach specialist sexual health clinic for young street sex workers, which was the runner up in the Community Based Services category.
The setting up and delivery of an acute, non-invasive ventilation service (a ward-based initiative) which won the Hospital and Specialist Service award.
A project to improve the management of children with gastroenteritis and dehydration which was the runner up in the Hospital and Specialist Service award.
The Acute Medical Assessment Unit to improve patient management and flow through Christchurch Hospital which won the Systems Improvement award.
A community stroke rehabilitation service pilot which was the runner up in the Systems Improvement category.
A ‘Welcome to the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit’ DVD to help reduce patients’ pre-operative anxiety by providing them and their families with information on post-operative care, which was highly commended.

A pharmacy service pilot in the Mabel Howard Clinic at The Princess Margaret Hospital to reduce the rate of re-admissions through active pharmacy involvement, which was highly commended.

ENDS