Nzopa Conference Notes 2010

NZOPA CONFERENCE NOTES 2010

PURCHASING ORTHOTIC SERVICES – ACC, DHB FUNDER PERSPECTIVES

Notes still to be provided by presenters.

WORKING IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY! – JANETTE SEARLE

Work Groups

Web Page & Communication

Learning & Development

Board of Certification

Working with Funders

Web Page & Communication

Leader – Taryn Seaman

Website Content

Library and Resource Centre

Video, Podcasts, Articles, Links

Forum Discussions

Requests for Information and Advice

Hop topics and Discussion Points

Newsletter

Content & Style

Learning and Development

Leader – David Gurr

Identify Skill Gaps.

Find ways to fill the Gaps

Peer Support and Mentoring

Workshops & Seminars

Internal Peer Run

External – National and International

E-Learning

Seminars and Training held online.

Board of Certification

Leader – Hiren Champaneri

Build on existing foundation

Ensure a challenging but realistic process

Develop national minimum standards

Service Provision

Product

End Goal – That funders will only contract with certified practitioners or those that can meet the standard

Working with Funders – ACC & DHBNZ

Leader – Blair Gardiner

Making Links & Building relationships

Work Collaboratively

Provide a pool of expertise.

How to embrace your inner Geek!

We’ve come a long way

NZOPA in 1985

We’ve come a long way

We’re here

We’ve come a long way

Its time to take the leap

And embrace your inner geek

What you want to do:

Share knowledge and Information

Case Studies

Interesting articles

AGM notes

Seek advice, ask for information

Work collaboratively on the work plan in Work Groups

Tools on the NZOPA website

NZOPA Website

Shared Information

Shared Work Group Files

Newsletters

Library and Resource Centre

My Files

Your own files that you would like to save online

Forum Discussions

Commenting, feedback, asking questions, seeking information and advice.

Online Meetings:

Skype

One on One Video Calls

Conference Calls (voice only)

Chat

Web Conferencing

Presentations including Power Point

Video calling and conferencing

Notes and chat

Video

Sunday 9th May

BOARD OF CERTIFICATION – WHERE TO FROM HERE?

BOARD OF CERTIFICATION Discussion Sunday morning

We now have a good representation of providers from private practitioners to DHB and sole practitioners. Indications from larger providers are that they wish to participate proactively in the NZOPA and Certification process.

What we want to achieve is clear entry into the process, with seamless entry into phase two. Paul and Alarna have worked on key Competencies.

The Portfolio standard for individual practitioners is to be developed.

Criteria for the Fellowship year are to be developed.

CORE COMPETENCIES – Paul Stopforth

Core competencies are those capabilities that are critical to an organization achieving competitive advantage. Clinicians will be judged on their ability to identify, cultivate and exploit the core competencies that make growth possible.

Promotion. Be able to exhibit personal drive and effectiveness. Be able to provide information to a wide variety of specialist fields about Orthotics and Prosthetics.

Patient Evaluation. Be able to provide detailed information, assess, collate and record pertinent data for future reference.

Contribution. Be able to make a significant contribution to the field of Orthotics and Prosthetics. Be able to select meaningful accountabilities and responsibilities to achieve goals that deliver positive outcomes.

Professionalism. Be able to possess professional skills and specialist knowledge and integrity in decision making that is required for effective achievement.

Quality Assurance. Be able to know the processes that systematically monitor and evaluate a facility to ensure standards of quality are being met.

Continuing Development. Be able to commit to continuing improvements and changes through exposure to internal and external learning sources. Eg (mentoring, coaching etc.)

Leadership. Be able to motivate others toward the achievement of shared goals. Be able to create a vision for the future, to foresee long term developments and select sound courses of

Discussion

The message being received from funders is that quality assurance and outcome measures will be key to future funding and purchasing decisions. It is intended to run a workshop in nelson in November covering Quality assurance. An Australian Quality endorsed Company will be presenting as well as New Zealand presenters.

Work may be undertaken on a base standard for quality assurance for companies. Quality assurance can be assessed externally by a suitably qualified auditor.

Need to look at Constitution again to bring it into line with the new organisation and Board of Certification processes.

WORK GROUP REPORT BACK

Web Page and Communication – Leader Taryn Seaman (information to be confirmed as correct with Taryn)

Web Page

Want to see better explanation of what an orthotist is
Bring in more money for the website such as advertising by members or suppliers
Area for buying and selling of stock for buy sell and exchange
Pictures of all the orthotists and a blurb about what you specialise in
What workshops are going on suppliers can email Janette and advise what workshops are happening
Front page to have perhaps the case study for the month to encourage communication
Comments area at the bottom of the case studies.
Function required to search case studies by alphabetical order or name
Perhaps put case studies into sections

Learning And Development – Leader David GurrInformation to be confirmed with David)

A huge area
Goal as an association to be developed but could include a number of courses and working relationships
Individual – journal reviews, e-links journals back to evidence based learning, accreditation
Skill gaps – include good at
What is needed could include a technical area.
What is to be done this year? Linking back to the internet, site important for education and learning
Information on courses available throughout the country - need to assess the courses
Have an understanding of the course and how it adapts to orthotics as a whole
This year the group will send a questionnaire out on specific subjects
Link with the site for courses
Have some courses run by us e.g. biomechanical work
Discussion groups have area discussion groups at leats one a year for specified regions that everyone is invited to
International speakers – to bring people up to date witjh whatever is going on in the rest of the worlds.
Huge area and will need help from everyone. Responsibility of each person to maintain and build on their education. Then as a group can get protocols and identify skill gaps
Forums and discussions good so communication needs to keep flowing.
Technicians group - perhaps have an experienced technician travelling to centres rather than brining them to a central point.

Could have ISPO look at courses and have them recognized by ISPO
Link with La Trobe and other specialist areas rather than re-invent the wheel then adapt to the New Zealand context.
One Goal for the year – to increase and improve learning and development.
Need to look at how learning and development needs to have a proportion of fess go towards learning and development.
Goal to have a recognized orthotics and technicians course in New Zealand recognized by ISPO.
Perhaps could go back to an apprenticeship scheme.
Student placements and exchanges
Accreditation a minimum standards and increased learning is the responsibility of individuals.

ACC/Funders – Leader Blair Gardiner

Team members present: N. Derbyshire, B Fisher, P Otto, A Tuck, D Nicholson.

Absent Members: J Bowden, S Hewitt, M Leonida, S Ruddle, S Shehan, M Smith, P Ward.

Guest: Russell Elleswei – Programme Manager, ACC Corporate Office.

Meeting began with a review of the “brief” for the workshop as developed by the Conference Organisers. This brief includes:

Making Links and Building Relationships.
Working Collaboratively
Provide a Pool of Expertise

Discussion began with a review of some of the issues that had been raised during the conference either by members, or as feedback from representatives of the two funding organisations attending. This included the points of;

Recognising that some issues or recommendations bought forward by this team may also be something that the other teams are working on or is within their brief to do so. Blair would find out more from the Exec. about how to stay up to date with other teams areas of focus.

In line with considerable work the NZOPA had been following through with for some time now, and similar advice from Funders, the team recognised that work would need to continue with “getting our house in order”. (This is in reference to continuing the development of professional standards (BOC) and establishing measurable outcomes in both the areas of service provision and the maintenance of professional standards).

Other feedback we had received specifically from Russell yesterday was that he is interested in becoming more aware of “problems” and issues related to service. When asked to expand on his specific interest eg. did he want lists of specific problems with (ACC case numbers so they were traceable?), he indicated that he is more interested in statistical data that indicates trends and provides an opportunity for analysis of what’s working and not working for ACC on a national basis.

In relation to how this team can assist the NZOPA to foster a collaborative relationship with Funders, a suggestion from the group was that we should start with the framework of:

Who
What
Where or How
When
Why

Who: To establish a list of the key individual contacts within all funder organisations that the NZOPA may wish to collaborate with. This will be achieved by sourcing this information from either Chis Pullar or Carol Searle. Blair will follow this through within the next 2/52. It is also envisaged that some collaboration with Funders may occur via a 3rd party or wider interest group such as the Allied Health Professionals Group. Therefore a list of potential Allied Provider Groups and organisations (& their contact people) along with specific National Standards or auditing organisations, should also be collated.

Russell indicated that a funder such as the ACC would prefer to work with larger combined groups of providers and not only did this make the process more practical and worth while from the Funders perspective, but also allowed a group such as ours to establish a stronger bargaining position.

What: What is it that we want to communicate to each of these Funders? This is essential to understand prior to undertaking contact, may be specific to the Funder organisation and is to be clarified as we progress ….

Where or how:will such collaboration be conducted. Initially planning for collaborative activities will be conducted within the team and the membership via the NZOPA website team portal, emails and other forms of meetings and forums. In essence this is to establish a basis of agreement on various issues from NZOPA members that the Exec. can go forward with and represent as the position of the NZOPA. Interaction with Funders and Allied Provider groups to promote the NZOPA position will occur via meetings and remotely, or by gaining membership of larger organisations as required.

When:to be established – this is more of a strategic consideration – contact needs to be regular enough to establish and maintain key contacts, but also not without purpose or such that it is without value or of nuisance to the contact.

Why:there has to be a reason for communication, it has to be of mutual benefit – what are we achieving? This could be for some or all of the following reasons:

To open up better communication lines between the NZOPA & the Funder
To sort operational issues – eg. Orthotic claims are taking “X” amount of weeks on average for approval compared with the preferred “Y”.
To promote the profession – to increase awareness of both the NZOPA and the O & P member practitioners who Funders purchase services from.
To improve Services that are purchased – Promotion of service and clinical models that O & P professional deem necessary or more appropriate for Funders to adopt.
To communicate & disseminate information to the membership regarding Funders position on issues and potential or actual changes being imposed on the funding landscape.
To be a Stakeholder – to be part of the process of improvement and change.

Meeting finished with the checking of email contact details and Russell distributing his card with the invitation to assist in addressing issues attending providers might have.

Board Of Certification Leader Hiren Champaneri (notes from group to be added and confirmed with Hiren)

Tryto move on to the next stage and at least develop a minimum standard.
Build a foundation on what has happened in the past
Challenge but have a realistic process
Some concerns with the past Board of Cert process. Acknowledging the work that has been done in the past but the process needs to be more straight forward and understood by all new members especially those coming from overseas.
Understand that there is provisional accreditation but what happens after that.
It is working but not to the expected standard.
Participation in the process is valuable in setting up Board of Cert minimum standard.
Need to focus on having a process that sets a standard that is adopted as the minimum standard for the country. Don’t want to tell people how to manufacture of undertake a process but provide awareness of the New Zealand process and what is an acceptable standard.
Have a fellowship year for a new immigrant toNew Zealandto bring them up to speed with new Zealand standards regardless of their employment situation.
Underpinned by quality assurance for the company
Individual has to have a Board of Cert number so funders can link back to the individual within a practice.
Transparency and access to information on line for information relating to individuals to promote good practice to mentor those who are dropping behind.
Goal is to get this on to the webpage onto the forum and get started.

Board has to make clear very quickly what is required to obtain and retain their Certification.
Perhaps we have a mix of points and case studies but not have attendance at some events as compulsory.
Recommendation that we move to 6 case studies per year to reduce pressure but move towards a better quality now and need to show how we can improve.
May need to change the format.
November meeting could have a presentation and teaching sessions about case studies.
Could incorporate 20 questions into your case studies and get case studies rated. By answering the questions could obtain points.
Linking journals back to the case studies to obtain the points.
When submitting case studies can add references to improve information and sharing skills.

The term “Fellowship” may need to be changed.
Have as the end goal a defined number of case studies and number of other activities such as journal reviews

This year reduce number of case studies to 6.