“Alexa? Make me a doctor’s appointment”
It’s no secret to anyone that knows me that I am very critical of our local District Health Board’s (“DHB”) and how they are administered.
To me, the curious layperson with apathy for organizational waste and excuses, what I witnessed working within the Northern Region DHB’s (ADHB, WDHB, CMH, NDHB) and dealing with its non-medical executive leadership was appalling.
It struck me just how much of a racket non-medical public sector healthcare administration really is. Outsource the thinking to consultants and obfuscate inaction for a couple of decades and you can have a very well paid career. The healthcare issues will always be there but as long as nothing seriously falls over on your watch you can eventually pass the problems on to the next generation and claim to have done some good in the world.
Cynical and true.
And this brings me to the two key takeaways from my time working within the DHBs.
- New Zealands’ public health care system is incredibly vulnerable to a massive disruption within the next decade, and,
- The sector is completely ignorant of his fact.
Plain and simple.
And, all it takes to understand what this disruption might look like is a simple thought experiment. No team of consultants required for this one!
