With the proposed changes to the health system looking to take more of a localities and network management approach to primary healthcare in the future, ProCare has today launched a new initiative and website called Reimagining Health as a another way of helping to ensure Tāmaki Makaurau is supporting new ways of working across communities and providers to help achieve better health outcomes, support equity in health and prepare for the reforms coming into effect.

This website aims to deliver providers and communities with information about the upcoming changes in the health system around a localities approach and outlines how people can come together in order to best meet the healthcare needs of the local community.

Bindi Norwell, Chief Executive at ProCare says: “We are really excited that this kaupapa calls on the healthcare sector to do things differently through using more of a population health lens overlayed with wider factors that can impact on health. There is an opportunity to improve the way care is delivered through localities and network management, and this approach is aimed at improving the overall health and wellbeing of communities and whānau, while reducing the health inequities we currently see across Tāmaki Makaurau.

“It is a holistic approach that considers the wider determinants of health, our health behaviours and lifestyles, an integrated health and care system that can help support people and the communities we live in. Whānau will be at the centre of localities through active participation between providers and communities so that care reflects what matters to the people in the locality,” continues Norwell.

“By launching the Reimagining Health initiative and website, we hope to encourage more providers and communities to think about the integration of care models and to explore the process we have outlined around how this can happen in reality,” she continues.

“So far, there are a number of organisations that have already given their tautoko (support) to the vision and principle of the localities approach as outlined on the partnerships page of the website. If there are other organisations, localities or network management groups out there that would like to work with us, find out more about how the approach could work or would be interested in ProCare working with their locality or network management group, we would encourage them to get in touch,” concludes Norwell.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

The Reimagining Health website can be found at www.reimagininghealth.nz

For more information please contact:

 Dee Crooks, Director of Brand and Communications dee.crooks@procare.co.nz or 022 0310 380.

About ProCare - ProCare is New Zealand’s largest network of family doctors (GPs), nurses, general practice teams and healthcare professionals providing community-based healthcare to more than 800,000 people across the greater Auckland region.  As New Zealand’s largest Primary Health Organisation we represent 167 practices serving the largest Pacific and South Asian populations enrolled in general practice in New Zealand and the largest Māori population in Tāmaki Makaurau. For more information go to www.procare.co.nz