Northland Primary Health Organisation Services

NPHOS ltd was originally established to provide register management support for Manaia PHO and Te Tai Tokerau PHO, and was incorporated as a Limited Liability Company on June 2005.  Since that time it has grown to include six Northland PHOs as shareholders, and has extended the range of support services it provides.

NPHOs is a vehicle for capturing, even creating, opportunities for its shareholder PHOs, which those individual PHOs might not expect or want to achieve on their own, and aims to improve the health of the people of Northland, by supporting its PHOs to be/become high performers as part of a high performing region.

Directory of Northland PHOs Ltd
As at 31st March 2007

Manaia PHO: Director: Dr Ron Abraham CEO: Chris Farrelly www.manaiapho.co.nz 17 Norfolk Street, Whangarei (09) 438 1015 Te Tai Tokerau PHO: Director: Erima Henare CEO: Rose Lightfoot www.tttpho.co.nz 18 Puckey Avenue, Kaitaia (09) 408 3142 Kaipara Care PHO: Director: John Marsden CEO: Chris Tipa www.kci.org.nz PO Box 112, Dargaville (09) 439 7149

Tihewa Mauri Ora PHO: Director: Bruce Gillies CEO: Catherine Turner www.tihewapho.org.nz PO Box 733, Kaikohe (09) 405 2351 Whangaroa PHO: Director: Alan Brooker CEO: Garry Ware, Judy Steele PO Box 64, Kaeo (09) 405 0355 Hauora Hokianga Integrated PHO: Director: Joe Topia CEO: John Wigglesworth www.hokiangahealth.org.nz C/- Hokianga Health Enterprise Trust Private Bag, Kaikohe (09) 405 7322

The key principles of NPHOS are:

• Support and collaboration
• Sharing of resources (cost efficiency – improved effectiveness)
• Commitment to Northland; restrict to Northland PHOs only
• Consensus (acting with integrity towards each other)
• Concept of lead PHO (limit business activity of NPHOS Ltd)
• Retain [preserve, but also maximise] collective intellectual property of its members
• Preserve autonomy of each PHO, freedom for any PHO to opt out of any shared services
  

PHO Capitation & Registration Management

For NPHOs, this service is carried out by Manaia Health PHO.
Key aspects of this service include:

• Manage calculations for capitation payments and FFS breakdowns each month of each quarter
• Support services to PHO Accountants and Accounts personnel
• Support technical issues with the Diabetes Get Checked programme
• Technical support and roll out of Counties Manukau DHBs CarePlus software, (commonly referred to as TIM)
• Capitation and FFS enquiries from member medical practices for each of Northlands six PHOs
• Providing technical support and training for General Practice personnel
• Providing data for meeting mandatory requirements relating to data management for each PHO to the Ministry of Health and its agencies, such as Service Utilisation Reports
• Providing technical support for PHO projects and some rudimentary support for various PMS vendors and data transport agencies such as HealthLink where it directly relates to PHO business
• Assisting Northland DHB with patient practice affiliation information for the likes of NIR support
• Meeting Northland DHB contractual requirements for provision of up to date Practice and Provider lists and Practice Fee’s schedules
• Compiling trend analysis and other data type reports for PHOs

This service has two staff members and has a discreet cost centre within the Manaia Health PHO financial system, which is reported on in the annual financial accounts.

A number of regional projects have been undertaken with a lead PHO acting on behalf of all members.