Chronic disease treatment seeks to empower patients

The way chronic diseases are managed in Hawke's Bay looks set to change as local nurses took the first step in becoming trainers of an Australian-based treatment model last week.
Eleven nurses who specialise in long-term illnesses attended a workshop in Napier to become trainers of the Flinders Model - a style of treatment new to the Bay that gave patients the tools and knowledge to partly manage their own health.
Those 11 nurses became qualified in the Flinders Model late last year and are now in the process of becoming qualified to train local medical practitioners.
It is hoped the Flinders Model will instill a new approach to managing chronic diseases throughout Hawke's Bay.
The treatment model gives patients greater power to self-manage their health.
They will collaborate with a Flinders-trained health professional to formulate a self-management care plan and monitor their health and respond to challenges related to their condition on a daily basis.
The self-management techniques will complement, not replace, traditional medical treatment.
Long-term condition nurse specialist Helen Francis is slowly putting the Flinders model into practice at Hastings Health Centre.
Ms Francis said: "It's really good to work out with the patient their own barriers and how to reach their goals. There's no point in saying I want your blood-sugar levels to come down, because that means nothing to them."
The patient's personal goals of seeing a grandchild get married or playing with their mokopuna, will instead provide the motivation.
The Flinders Model also makes patients less reliant on the health system, consequently freeing up resources.
Ms Francis said chronic diseases were a "huge" burden on the health system.
In 2006, a New Zealand health survey found 66 per cent of adults had a condition expected to last six months or more. Hawke's Bay Primary Health Organisation clinical facilitator Julia Ebbett said the health system had not kept up with the changing needs of chronic disease care.