3 September, 2021
Weathering the storm to see a better future
This year’s Medical Technology Association of New Zealand conference examined the changes in New Zealand’s healthcare landscape – health system reform, PHARMAC’s expanded role with medical devices, as well as the Therapeutic Products Bill – and how to address them.
The themes that emerged were for the industry and sector to focus on and foster value-based health care (VBHC) through the following:
- Enduring Innovation, which is important as digital and data are much more effective in achieving an equitably accessible healthcare system. Furthermore, innovation in digital literacy helps improve daily workflows, driving efficiency and freeing up healthcare workers to diagnose, care for and save people’s lives.
- Partnerships and collaboration, in areas such as procurement, assessment of medical devices, and the new therapeutic products regulation. Work on the latter, for example, will require leveraging international expertise to build capability in New Zealand.
- Clinician and consumer engagement. The sector requires good partnerships to drive equitable success. By leveraging digital technologies, a cohesive single national service could be established to provide consistent, high quality of care.
The presenters felt New Zealand was ready to move away from purely cost-based procurement decisions. In response, PHARMAC indicated it will assess new technology by looking at need, cost, savings, health benefits and sustainability.
These themes are explored in the paper below. Commissioned by Medtronic, written by Sue Hill from Healthy Communications, www.healthycomms.co.nz.
