Improving timelines for elective surgery treatment decisions
ACC’s ability to deliver timely and consistent elective surgery decisions is a critical part of improving New Zealand’s quality of life.
ACC funds around 40,000 elective surgery procedures each year, with this number growing by around 3% per annum over the last three years. This has put pressure on our elective surgery assessment process and left kiritaki (clients) waiting too long for elective surgery decisions.
We’re working on a range of changes to improve the surgery decision-making process and make it easier for specialists and surgeons to work with us – so kiritaki can get the elective surgery they need and get on the road to recovery.
This includes work within ACC to understand and improve the end-to-end journey for kiritaki who may require elective surgery.
Right now, elective surgery treatment decisions are often delayed because we don’t get all the information we need through the existing surgical assessment and treatment plan (ARTP) process. The current manual template and submission process is difficult to use, and sometimes the information specialists need from us to complete the form is not easily available.
We’re exploring options for how this process could be streamlined and digitised, making it quicker and easier for specialists to submit all the information that’s needed to make timely decisions.
We recently shared our plans with key professional bodies. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be meeting one-on-one with surgeons to discuss what a digitised surgery request process might look like and how we can ensure it meets their needs. We look forward to further engaging with the sector and keeping you updated as we progress this priority work.
Two other improvements are planned to roll out in June and July:
- We’re implementing a new assessment support tool for Simple Knee Arthroscopy, which has been developed from surgery guidelines agreed between ACC and the New Zealand Orthopaedic Association (NZOA). Knee arthroscopy is one of the most common surgical procedures funded by ACC, accounting for 15-20% of our surgical request volume. This assessment tool will support our team to significantly speed up simple knee arthroscopy decisions and improve accuracy and consistency of decision-making. We’re starting early work to identify if similar tools can be developed to help speed up assessments for other common surgery types, including shoulder surgeries.
- As communicated to radiology suppliers, we’re also adopting PACSLink from mid-June. Making use of this industry-standard digital imaging platform will make it much quicker and easier for our Principal Clinical Advisors to view the imaging needed to inform surgery decisions – helping further streamline the approval process.
We’ll continue to keep you updated on this mahi and other ways we’re working to improve outcomes and deliver greater value to New Zealanders.
Find out how you can help ensure timely surgical decisions for your clients with our watch and learn webinars:
How to write a successful surgical ARTP - for medical specialists
How to get surgical ARTPs right – for those who support medical specialists