$10.5m telehealth funding for DHBs and GPs

eHealthNews.nz: Digital Patient

Monday, 28 September 2020

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eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

The Ministry of Health has given $10.5m ‘digital enablement funding’ to District Health Boards and general practice to support locally led delivery of telehealth services and digital inclusion.

The fund included $7.1m for DHBs and $3.4m for GPs and the Ministry has established a digital enablement work programme, “to guide the allocation of further available funding”.

A temporary waiver for non-New Zealand Electronic Prescription Service (NZePS) signature exempt prescriptions has also been extended until December 23.

A Ministry spokesperson says the impact of national lockdowns due to Covid-19 has led to a rapid increase in the use of telehealth, both in electronic prescribing and telehealth consultations.

“The recent experience of the Covid-19 response demonstrated the health system’s ability to use technology to deliver health services where the patient and clinician were not in the same physical location,” the spokesperson says.

“The Ministry of Health recognises the need to support locally-led delivery of telehealth services and digital inclusion (and) has provided $10.5m of digital enablement funding support to health sector organisations for this purpose.”

Counties Manukau Health, which conducted more than 3200 telehealth appointments in one week in April this year during lockdown, told eHealthNews.nz it will use the digital enablement funding to “support further enablement of telehealth”.

Electronic prescribing is a key digital enabler of telehealth, alongside electronic ordering of investigations such as lab tests.

The Ministry website says the extension of the temporary waiver on physical signatures for prescriptions, which was due to expire in September, enables systems and settings that are working towards NZePS integration to complete this work.

The latest MoH data on uptake of NZePS shows around 820 practices are now activated to use the ePrescription service, up from 700 in June and 137 in December 2018.

Six DHBs have more than 90 percent of practices using NZePS and only two, Canterbury and Tairawhiti, have less than half their local practices signed up. More than one million eScripts were issued in May of this year.

The spokesperson says the Ministry is supporting the use of telehealth in other ways, such as education through the NZ Telehealth Leadership Group, and digital inclusion initiatives, such as sponsored data on health websites.

NZTLG chair Ruth Large says the group is very keen to ensure the telehealth money “doesn't get tied up in bureaucracy” and wants to help guide and make resources available for DHBs to make the best use of it.

She says that while telehealth has the ability to break down equity barriers, it also has the potential to build more.

“It's very easy to build a telehealth service for the worried well, but it's not so easy to deliver a good quality telehealth service to those people who really need it, in particular the disadvantaged,” she explains.

While the NZTLG has been championing telehealth for years it has not previously had the resources to do a lot, she says. However, it now has some Ministry funding for the chair and deputy chair roles and has hired a project manager.

While previously they have had trouble attracting people to its working groups, membership has rapidly grown as individuals and organisations have realised the benefits of telehealth.

Hear more from Ruth Large in our next eHealthNews.nz webinar at midday on October 14, Telehealth – building a lasting service post-crisis.