And then there was the continuing fallout from the cyberattack on Manage My Health, with patients rightly questioning the security of their private information.<\/p>\n
Rose-tinted goggles were crucial for reminding oneself of the upside of both policy changes and the heads-up that good cybersecurity should not be taken for granted.<\/p>\n
But wait, there\u2019s more: before you hang up those goggles, March madness is on its way.<\/p>\n
March sees the sector in a state of anticipation. By month\u2019s end, the great reveal means we will know how many practices plan to leave their respective PHOs to join GenPro\u2019s thePHO. At last count, the number was 116 practices, according to GenPro, with a massive 833,000 enrolled patients. ThePHO awaits final approval at the end of March, which coincides with the Primary Care Advisory Group\u2019s due date to complete a clear strategy for the future of PHOs and clinical alliances.<\/p>\n
While much attention has been paid to promises thePHO will deliver more capitation funding to the frontline of its general practices, it also potentially provides some shelter in a storm. The T\u0101maki Health sale to global corporate TPG is likely to be finalised soon, and speculation continues that Green Cross Health is heading for a sale. ThePHO is delivering its GP-focused credentials while the landscape is looking decidedly less GP-focused, despite the best efforts of many PHOs.<\/p>\n
If thePHO can provide a more GP\/ NP friendly vibe, maybe it will provide the encouragement for younger clinicians to buy into practices. But, at the same time, the creation of such a large PHO will likely see other practices losing services as their PHOs lose enrolment numbers and hence funding. Tricky times.<\/p>\n
There is at least a bright spot for GP registrars. A recent Medical Council survey found that only 4 per cent of GP registrars were worried about finding work. In comparison, 43 per cent of their counterparts in hospital-based specialities had the jitters. Okay, so it says a lot about the vacancies in general practice and the understaffing in our public hospitals.<\/p>\n
I told you, rose-tinted goggles are the go.<\/p>\n
Editor Barbara Fountain has been a journalist since 1990. Her areas of interest include sector reform and the future of primary care<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And then there was the continuing fallout from the cyberattack on Manage My Health, with patients rightly questioning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-312446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}