Medical expertise for export

By TOM CLARKE

New Zealand nurses could soon be sorting out, by telephone, the medical problems of people living overseas.

ProCare Health Ltd, an independent practitioners' association, is discussing with a number of international groups how it can provide them with access to its telephone nurse triage service, says its new chief executive Mark Wills.

The association represents some 350 general practitioners throughout the Greater Auckland region.

The telephone triage service is one which assigns priorities to a medical dilemma.

Aucklanders who telephone their local doctors for after-hours medical help, are switched through to a call centre. A qualified triage nurse takes them through a process of determining what level of emergency or urgency is required.

The nurse recommends a course of action such as referring them to the nearest medical centre or arranging for a home visit by a ProCare doctor. In an emergency an ambulance is called. The nurse does not offer a diagnosis.

Mr Wills says providing an after-hours triage nurse telephone service internationally is quite possible because of the time differences involved.

"We recognised that there were different ways of providing after-hours services that would improve the level of service our shareholder member GPs could offer their patients - which led to the provision of this service," he says.

"Then we realised that there are time-zone differences and that there are people who don't have this level of sophistication and expertise in telephone and computer systems, nor the software, and that this service is exportable.

"We've been in discussions with some international groups as to how we might be able to provide this service for them, and our discussions are fairly well advanced. There are always hiccups and stumbles along the way, but we're certainly progressing negotiations."

Another service which ProCare believes it might be able to export is its continuing medical education programmes. It has hosted visits by people from the Australian health system to study its activities and services in anticipation of changes to their heath services.

ProCare provides a wide range of services to its shareholders, including budget management services, quality systems that measure the level of service from its members, health promotion programmes, and standards and audit processes.

It is continuing to explore other business opportunities and is about to launch a new service, ProCare Pharmacy Ltd, to improve the collaboration between GPs and pharmacists.

Mr Wills believes this will result in a better quality of service to the patient, more consistency in treatment and a greater level of satisfaction and professional development for both pharmacists and GPs.