Northland general practice achieves New Zealand first in equity accreditation from Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners

RNZCGP principal quality advisor Heidi Bubendorfer, left, presents Rust Avenue Medical Centre practice manager Nadine Whitton with her Cornerstone Accreditation certificate. Photo / supplied

A Whangārei general practice is paving the way with its commitment to equitable health outcomes for patients.

Rust Ave Medical Centre is the first practice nationwide to be awarded the Cornerstone Equity accreditation by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) last month.

It's a positive step towards closing the gap in health disparities in Northland, as well as a big affirmation for the centre which began its quality improvement journey with the renewal of its Foundation standards in 2019.

Every New Zealand practice must achieve RNZCGP Foundation accreditation every three years as part of a mandatory quality standard. The Cornerstone accreditation is the next step up in the college's quality framework.

The Cornerstone level involves the successful completion of both an equity module and a continuous quality improvement module.

The Equity module focused on four areas where practices needed to develop pro-equity elements: the practice team; organisation and leadership; service development and delivery; and workforce.

Rust Avenue Medical Centre practice manager Nadine Whitton said the practice had "definitely benefitted" from the Equity module.

"Equity is really important. We're more open and aware of it now. We've improved our target boards to include a wider range of ethnicities," she said.

"Another thing we've done that I'm really pleased about is campaign to get better ethnicity data. I asked Predict Enigma to put ethnicity data in some of their reports, and just last week I went into the reports and it had been done."

Rust Avenue Medical's clinical team uses Predict Enigma reports to identify patients with diabetes in need of an annual diabetic review.

By adding ethnicity data the team is more able to quickly and easily prioritise target groups to help achieve more equitable outcomes, Whitton said.

Staff completed training in racism, bias and discrimination as part of a module written by Whitton herself.

"Then we looked at all our services to improve equity, and wrote an equity plan," she said.

The practice altered its human resources to reflect an equity focus – such as updating policy, including equity questions and an equity champion in recruitment interviews, and analysing candidates' answers to ensure they would fit into a pro-equity practice.

Job descriptions, person specifications and contracts were updated with a focus on equity. They also added equity to staff performance reviews and carried out a gap analysis to ensure their team reflected the ethnic makeup of their community.

"Next, I'm working on getting our practice management system to provide ethnicity data for the patient portal uptake, so we can see if we've got equitable uptake of the portal. That sort of thing benefits other practices too," Whitton said.

Mahitahi Hauora chief executive Jensen Webber was pleased to see the centre's commitment to more equitable health among patients rewarded.

"Equity is central to the Mahitahi Hauora kaupapa. It's about getting the same outcomes for everyone, and it's not easy to achieve that – everyone has different needs, so our mahi for different groups in our community needs to be responsive," Webber said.

"We encourage and recognise the mahi our practices do in this space, and our improvement partners and Whānau Engagement team are always here to provide support."