Lessons and future opportunities

Lessons learnt throughout the work programme

Although the overwhelmingly successful, they also involved challenges.

• COVID-19 affected teams because clinical staff were redeployed or needed to take time out for COVID-19-related and teams were managing high clinical pressures with reduced staffing levels.
• either did not exist or was held across different health agencies, making data collection a very labour-intensive manual task.
• Some teams found it challenging to get consumer representation and so struggled to apply true co-design within their projects.
• Although equity training was included in the collaborative curriculum, the teams did not integrate a Māori worldview or measure equity consistently. As such, we recommend that the Te Ao Māori Framework[1] for quality improvement and specific equity measurements be incorporated in future projects.

Future opportunities

The trauma rehabilitation work programme has evolved since it was established in 2020. The successful completion of the national rehabilitation collaborative has resulted in lasting service efficiencies that have improved rehabilitation access for people with serious injury.

Integrating allied health professionals within trauma services was seen as an important enabler to provide early and effective rehabilitation.  The network and the commission sponsored a study day in July 2022 to bring trauma allied health professionals together to scope how these clinicians are embedded in trauma team, details of that study day can be accessed via this link https://www.hqsc.govt.nz/news/study-day-increases-profile-of-allied-health-in-trauma-rehabilitation-and-care/.

Sector engagement, consumer involvement and robust data analysis has identified that more work is required if Aotearoa New Zealand is to become a world leader in trauma care.  Future care delivery needs to focus on:

• ensuring that patients are provided with the right rehabilitation service, as soon as possible
• implementing systematic processes to screen for the factors that impact long-term recovery, such as post-traumatic stress disorder and persistent pain
• that people and their whānau are empowered with consistent and not understandable information about their injuries and recovery
• developing high-quality data that is visible nationally and that reflects outcomes across the patient continuum.
• that is visible nationally and that reflects outcomes across the patient continuum is needed.

Te Tāhū Hauora will continue to work closely with the Network until the end of June 2023 to strategically plan ongoing opportunities for improvement in trauma rehabilitation.

References

[1] Te Tāhū Hauora Health Quality & Safety Commission. 2023. Te Ao Māori Framework | Te Anga Ao Māori. URL: www.hqsc.govt.nz/resources/resource-library/te-ao-maori-framework