Conversation on healthcare needs to change

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eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Picture: Former director general of health Chai Chuah.

The conversation on healthcare needs to change, as “doing all the usual stuff is not going to solve the problem,” says retired director general of health Chai Chuah.

Chuah left his director general role early in February this year and is now concentrating on learning and blogging about digital health and issues impacting health services, as well as nurturing leaders of the future.

He says that while the answer to pressure on the health service is traditionally seen as “more resources”, the existing system has fundamental flaws and therefore “putting more resources into a flawed system is in itself insufficient to solve the pressure”.

“We have to continue to improve what we are currently doing so that we can create the head room to invest in creating something new that is fit for purpose and will actually solve the underlying issue around why are we having this growing inequity gap around access and affordability?” Chuah tells eHealthNews.

“It’s the new thing that’s really scary, but we have to do both.”

No one has to look far to see how much technology influences day-to-day life, but Chuah says the healthcare system struggles to adapt because the context and environment is moving and changing at such an exponential rate.

He argues that success in digitising the health system requires quality leaders who can “give up their comfort zones” and decide to change. This includes leaders in the policy, political and professional spaces, as well as within provider organisations.

“To transition to a change agenda that has got this dual thing between improving what we have got, based on the existing way of delivering services, and creating something new, you have got to look at the quality of our leadership,” he says.

Chuah believes leaders need four key attributes, namely, to “know how to manage their egos”, have a commitment to a greater public good, understand that they are part of a team and have courage.

He has taken on six up-and-coming Kiwi leaders from a variety of fields, to offer them help and guidance, “because they are the future and we need better leaders”.

Chuah acknowledges that his views, expressed when he was director general of health, were “not popular for the status quo”.

“I didn’t wake up one morning and decide to do this stuff to annoy people, but through a journey of discovery to open my eyes, I realised that the recipe we have been using to make the omelette is no longer the right recipe,” Chuah says, using an analogy from his leaving speech at the Ministry of Health.

“Someone has to come up with a new recipe and break the first egg to make a different omelette using a new strategy, so the New Zealand Health Strategy refresh is the new strategy.

“Some of the conversations taking place over the last two years was me breaking the egg because someone had to. I know it can be overwhelming and it’s easy to misunderstand what I’m saying and often people do,” he says.

“I’m not saying we have to, right now, throw out everything that we do; what I’m saying is we have to do two things concurrently.”

Chuah says he originally planned on writing a book setting out his ideas, but realised that it would be quickly out of date in such a fast-changing environment, so instead he is using blogs on LinkedIn to create a conversation online.

He says for his next role, he wants to be involved with like-minded people in an agenda for change that is positive and meaningful.

“Change will happen, that’s why I’m very positive; the only thing is how and when?” 

Read Chuah's guest column.

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